


Sleeping Pendragon

by KimliPan



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, True Love's Kiss, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimliPan/pseuds/KimliPan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is faced with an entirely new world of magic that isn't from the Old Religion – magic that's broken by things like fairy dust and True Love's Kiss.  The kinds of curses that come from this new magic are dangerous, revelatory and dark.  Camelot falls into misery when Arthur is placed under a sleeping curse that only strong magic can bring him out of, and which Merlin (Gwaine in tow) must travel to a foreign realm to find.  Along the way are mermaids, fairies, maidens in towers and lots of sexual tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Pendragon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Paperlegends 2013! It's my first ever bang for any fandom! This has been both daunting and amazing to do. Many thanks to [chaperoned](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chaperoned/pseuds/chaperoned), [luceycantdance](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luceycantdance) and [TheBorgiasDevil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBorgiasDevil/pseuds/TheBorgiasDevil) for being amazing motivators and beta readers.
> 
> And especially to my artist, [thedeathchamber](http://thedeathchamber.livejournal.com/), whose incredible art your can view [here](http://thedeathchamber.livejournal.com/16384.html).

“Merlin!” Gwen called out.  Her heels clicked after her down the corridor as she chased Merlin down on his way to the kitchens.  He turned to face her; even as Camelot’s queen, she was never above running her own messages.  He smiled at her, thinking of her not as the great Queen she was, but instead as the servant girl who’d been his first friend in Camelot.  “Merlin, Arthur’s retired early tonight,” she said, giving him a gentle tap on his upper arm as she spoke.  “And I’ve already eaten, so why don’t you take the evening off, yeah?”

“ _Retired early_?” Merlin repeated with a small quirk of his lips and a scoff.  “Lazy prat would have let me bring an empty room his supper, wouldn’t he.”

Gwen laughed and folded her hands over her skirt.  “He had a long day,” she said with a twitch of bemused affection, though she wasn’t quite defending him.

 “Alright, I’ll just finish up and…”  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “Wow, yeah.  I’ll get to bed early.  Won’t that be a change?”   He raised his brows and smiled at her, head tilted forward.  “Good night, my Queen,” he said with a shallow, playful bow.

They parted ways and Merlin finished his chores quickly, lending him the better part of the evening completely free.  He found himself wanting to check on Arthur anyway but fought the urge by reminding himself that ‘retiring early’ probably meant walking in on something a little bit less than noble between Camelot’s king and queen; the thought began to sour him somewhat, darkened his expression.  That was when a hand slapped his upper back and he startled back into his usual guard.

“Merlin!”  Gwaine.  Merlin grinned and turned to his friend, dressed down from his usual knightly armor in a tunic and a leather coat.  “Scared ya there, didn’t I?” he asked, flipping his hair from his eyes as he often did, most especially, Merlin noted, when he was either breaking a rule or pleased with himself.  The two often went hand-in-hand.

“’Course you did,” Merlin confessed.  “ _Terrified_ me.  Still shaking, clearly.”

“Can see that,” Gwaine said with a proud nod.  “Why don’t we calm you down with a drink, yeah?”  They began walking together, Gwaine still escorting Merlin with a hand now on the small of his back.  “I’m meeting the guys at the Rising Sun.  Come with us.”

It didn’t take much deliberation.  Merlin shrugged with a bit of a pensive frown as if to say _sure, why not?_   “I’ll see you there, then,” he said and Gwaine gave his back a second pat, gentler this time but no less intrusive.  Merlin rolled his eyes fondly.

“See ya there!”

Merlin got to the Rising Sun as the sun outside was setting. It didn’t take long to find Gwaine gambling with Percival and back.  He grabbed himself an ale before heading straight for them only to have some of his drink spilled as Gwaine greeted Merlin by wrapping an arm round his neck and pulling him down to muss up his hair in punishment.  Merlin held his arm out to balance the stein, laughing while he tried to stand back up straight.

”What took you so long?” Gwaine asked when he let him go.  As Merlin tried to straighten himself out, Gwaine took the ale from his hand to drink half of it down before he pushed it back into his hands. “We were starting to wonder if you’d to even show.” Merlin took the drink back with a bit of show, looking down at it, frowning heavy disappointment, while Gwaine went from patting his back to Percival’s shoulder in a drunken loop of affection.

“Had to tuck Great Arthur the Useless into bed,” he said, finally taking a swig of it himself once it was clear his mourning over lost alcohol would only go neglected by Gwaine.

With a shaking head and a knowing grin, Percival gave Gwaine a strong pat on the back before saying to Merlin, “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” and walking out.

“Ahh, you didn’t hafta do that,” Gwaine said, practically pushing Merlin into a seat at an empty table. Merlin took it gladly as he practically inhaled a healthy swig of his ale.  He slapped the stein against the table with a heart _whump_ and shook his head back at Gwaine while Percival ducked out.  “He gave you the night off, didn’t he?  Bet he and Gwen were doing a little royal service, yeah?”  Leaning back in his own seat, Gwaine folded his hands behind his head and laughed at Merlin’s pinched look.  “Everyone’s thinking it, I’m just saying it.  Just ‘cause they get to wear the crowns doesn’t mean they don’t have a drive like ours, y’know?”

“You, Gwaine,” Merlin said, leaning over the table to point a finger at his friend, “are impossibly _pissed_.”

“Drunk men speak sober thoughts,” Gwaine offered, slapping a palm on the table emphatically with a broad grin that Merlin chose to understand as incoherent rather than deliberate.  “So _were_ they doin’ it?”

If Gwaine _was_ sober, the incoherence might have confused Merlin for persistence – stubbornness even – but Merlin wanted to think he knew better.  Gwaine only pressed when he knew something other people didn’t, and for him to ask Merlin about the king’s sex life came dangerously close to asking him about his feelings on it, especially with the way he leaned over the table, raised his brow, even watched Merlin expectantly.

Merlin had gone back just to see to it that Arthur was tucked in how he liked, with the pillows fluffed as he preferred, the right linens set aside for the morning, and his piss pot prepared.  Merlin wasn’t sure if Gwen knew Arthur’s habits yet, they’d only been married so long.  The two of them, they were perfect for each other and Merlin was proud to have had a hand in uniting them, but it was still hard to let go of his innate desire to care for Arthur.  Even as annoying and priggish as Merlin found him, Merlin came close to loving him, and that wasn’t something he thought Gwaine would understand.

“They weren’t _doing it_ , Gwaine,” he finally answered with as much exasperation as appreciation.  Gwaine’s frankness made it comfortable, easy.  “Arthur was _sleeping_ and Gwen was brushing her hair.  Hope that doesn’t damage your theory.”

“Bah.”  Gwaine gestured at the bartender for another beer and said to Merlin eagerly, “Let’s not think about His Majesty’s royal prick,” all the while leaning over the table.  Merlin wasn’t sure if the action was for support or show.  “It’s just you and me tonight, so let’s have a drink and a laugh, yeah?”

And Gwaine held true to that.  He didn’t bring Arthur back up, and he bought even Merlin several rounds in fact.  It was much more than Merlin planned on drinking, and by the time they set to leave he was even more drunk than Gwaine. 

“Of course it comes to be,” Merlin said, “on the only night I get off, I do _actually_ go to the tavern.”  He laughed and threw himself against Gwaine’s arm for balance when he stumbled over one of the heavy wooden stools on their walk out.  Gwaine, who was infuriatingly less affected, wrapped an arm round Merlin with a quiet _alright there_ and held him on his feet.  “Arthur thinks I’m here _all the time_.  Whenever I’m missing,” he scrunched his brows and nose and pointed at Gwaine accusingly, doing and altogether terrible impression of the king, “ _oh, it’s the tavern again is it?_ ”

Gwaine chuckled and took hold of Merlin’s accusing finger, pushing it down.  “Yeah, so I hear from Princess,” he said with somewhat of a sigh that Merlin felt with a shudder.  “Have always wondered where ya go...”

Merlin pressed forward, his arm wrapped round Gwaine’s arm now for support, leading them both out of the tavern.  “Doesn’t matter either way, ‘s long as he keeps thinking what he’s thinking,” he answered, and they both stumbled somewhat out the front door, Merlin almost toppling over entirely if it weren’t for Gwaine’s strong arm.

They both clutched onto each other and laughed as they regained their balance, Merlin’s smile bigger and lighter than it had been in weeks.  “It’s a good thing you didn’t pick any fights,” he teased. 

To which Gwaine replied, “I would never,” and they both laughed again.

And they remained laughing right up until Merlin’s stature sobered.  It was very sudden, a cold rush thought his whole body, and he perked up like a deer sensing danger.  It was as if all at once a rush of dark magic gripped his every nerve and he looked to Gwaine, expression grave.  “I need to go,” he said, overwhelmed -- suffocating, even -- from this sudden sense of dread that came from nowhere.  He hurried clumsily off, every instinct in him telling him to check on Arthur’s quarters.

He ran from the tavern to the servants’ entrance with little difficulty, the sides of his vision now blurs of straw and bricks.  Once he got there, though, his drunken hands fumbled uselessly with the door; the latch, which seemed second-nature during the day, was now impossibly complex.  He had to pull here, push there, and kick the door just right – but it just wouldn’t work.  The drinks had weakened his grip and made even the course, heavy iron latch slippery in his drunken fingers.  As he set to try again, an arm came down in front of him making Merlin jump.  It lifted the iron clasp with no difficulty, and Merlin turned around to see Gwaine _laughing_ at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, entering on ahead of Merlin who was both relieved and panicked at the sight of him.  “One of your funny feelings?”

Merlin wanted to roll his eyes and hug him both at once.  “Something like that,” he murmured as they moved on, though Merlin was leading despite not being quite sure what he was looking for.  He’d also maybe have led them effectively through the corridors if he didn’t have to stop every now and again to regain his balance, at which time he would turn to Gwaine and ask him, “How could you let me drink that much,” “Why aren’t you this drunk,” or, most emphatically, “Why won’t the walls stop _moving_?”

Gwaine wasn’t all too much help, either.  He would just watch Merlin, carrying a torch Merlin didn’t even notice him take from the walls. He’d laugh, tilt his head back to flip his hair, then walk on. 

“Where is your funny feeling taking us?” he asked just as Merlin realized he was leading them to Morgana’s old chambers.

“Dunno yet,” he admitted, brows pinched together as he walked right past it trying hard not to make note of the door or its implications, not in front of Gwaine at least.  He thought he did a great job of it, thank you very much, right even as he didn’t look back or acknowledge its existence, but there was a tickle: _Is this Morgana?  Is she going to try again?  She’s in the castle.  But where?_

“Oi!  Who’s there!” Gwaine called out, raising his torch high to get a good look.  Merlin’s senses sharpened and he stood upright, a hand against the wall.  They saw nothing helpful, just the tail of a black cloak trailing round a corner.  They both chased it, but they only had to get to the corner and they both practically toppled over a short elderly woman who had turned around to face them.

The flickering torchlight made her features look gaunt and blemished, and her hair wiry, but as menacing as she appeared, her hands were raised in a defeat and surrender, and her furrowed brows reflected no ill will. 

“What are you up to,” Merlin demanded, hardly put off by it.  His eyes narrowed and darkened as he looked her up and down.  _Sorceress,_ he thought.

“Sorry, sirs!” Her voice was rusty, cracking even.   “It’s a present, it is.  For the king!”  She stepped aside to show a spinning wheel, un-strung and lame inside the wheelbarrow that carried it.  Beside it was a basket of apples, half spilt, probably from the effort of being jerked around in the cart.

“ _That_?” Merlin ask, his voice kept light with a small laugh though his distrust was hardly veiled by it.  “What’s the king gonna do with a spinning wheel?”

“Aww, come on, Merlin,” said Gwaine with a  light laugh, effectively pulling the strength from Merlin’s demand.  He stepped forward to grab one of the apples.  The old woman stepped back and let it happen, though displeasure was plain on her lips.  “What’s the present for?” There was a loud crunch as he took a big bite and stepped back behind Merlin again, speaking now with a mouthful of fruit, “It’s not his birthday.  No festivals, no celebrations.  Who’s it from?”

“I-I-“ The hag looked between Gwaine and Merlin, eyes wide, mouth parted. “…I don’t know, my Lord,” she admitted.

“Just Gwaine,” he said as quickly as Merlin asked,

“How can you _not know_?”

The adrenaline of finding her was wearing off as any of what initially may have made her seem threatening practically vanished.  Merlin stepped up to lean against the cart, the fog of drunkenness returning.

“I dunno,” she said again.  “A woman, she paid me to bring it in, she did.  Ten silver.  Showed me to the servant’s entrance an’ all.”  She pulled a coffer from her cloak and shook it.  “Gonna use it to buy meself a proper man tonight, I am.”

Gwaine choked on the apple -- or was it a laugh? -- and Merlin cringed, shielding his eyes though it did little to hide the mental image.  “I’ve definitely heard enough,” he said, pushing off the cart to turn to Gwaine.  “Help her deliver it, will you?” He walked past him and gave his sober friend a pat on the arse.  “Maybe she’ll give _you_ the coin.”

A toothy grin was less toothy on the woman than either of them had expected it to be.  “Ain’t a bad-lookin’ lad,” she said to him, and Gwaine groaned. 

“You owe me, Merlin!” he said as Merlin laughed and waved and walked past, ready to go back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The following morning was as much of a fog as the night before.  Merlin woke up to Gaius gently reminding him to get out of bed, though he was interrupted part way through by Arthur pushing in past him to ask Merlin, “What on earth are you doing still in bed?”

Merlin groaned and covered his head, though it couldn’t quite drown out the sound of Gaius smugly informing him, “He went out with Gwaine last night, Sire.  I’m afraid he’s become afflicted.”

Arthur said something along the lines of _this is why I don’t give you time off_ that Merlin didn’t quite catch because he was too busy comforting himself and his throbbing head.  It took him a while, but he managed to get himself and dressed and up and to the king’s quarters in time to clean up after his breakfast. 

Still heavy from the ale, the bags under Merlin’s eyes dragged as deep as his feet against the castle floors.  He carried the dishes and the baskets of laundry to where they needed to be.  It wasn’t until he returned with fresh linens that he remembered much of last night at all; he entered with the basket at his hip and his eyes fresh from air and time to breathe.  They fell on Arthur who stood at the window, back to the room, with his arms crossed over his chest.  Merlin frowned at the sight.  Though it wasn’t uncommon, it was startling all the same. 

There was something about Arthur’s face when he was serious.  His elbow rested on his hand crossed over his stomach while his other hand was up on his face, his thumb pressing his deep-set frown crookedly to the side.  Though the rising sun had long since passed by the sharp angles that shoots through the window, the late-morning position painted Arthur’s face all the same.

Merlin slammed the door behind when he entered, glad to make the king’s shoulders jump in surprise.  “Better not sulk too much, your highness,” he said, speaking the honorific, as ever, in as condescending a show of fealty as possible.  “Your face could get stuck that way.”

“Very funny, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur said with an eyeroll and a step back from the window. 

Merlin smiled to himself as he set to pull last night’s linens from the bed.  “Something on your mind?” he asked as he moved, only mildly less mocking than a moment earlier.  Arthur shook his head, gave no other answer.  “Not that I care, anyway, of course,” Merlin added, throwing the fresh sheets up and over to watch them fall slowly over the mattress.  “Just polite to ask, I suppose.  You know, when someone’s not feeling well.  To see how they’re doing.”  He glanced over his shoulder.  Arthur showed no sign of hearing him.  He stood behind his desk now, eyeing a letter with vague disinterest.

“Like I was ill this morning,” he carried on.  “Someone who cared might have said, ‘Merlin. You look sick.  You ought to have a day off.’ “  He patted some of the wrinkles out of the sheets and moved over to the other side of the bed.  When he heard no answer still, he kept on: “ ‘With that day off, you can rest and recov-‘ “

“I gave you last night off,” Arthur said placidly. 

“ _Gwen_ did,” Merlin corrected, though Arthur didn’t care.

“And as I recall, you spent it making yourselfill.”  Arms crossed over his chest, Arthur walked over to where Merlin worked at the bed.  When Merlin looked up at him, that usual push was at the corner of his mouth and Merlin had to force his own smile down.  It never got old, this stupid back and forth between them.

“Speaking of last night…”  Merlin stood upright and crossed his arms over his chest.  “You get anything new today?  Sewing thread?  Tailor scissors?”

Arthur looked taken aback by the question.  The playfulness vanished into pure confusion and he looked at Merlin incredulously.  “Merlin, I’m the _king._   What would I want with those things?”

Merlin nodded and walked past Arthur, patting his arm.  “I’m not sure, really.  Last night, some old hag brought in a spinning wheel, said it was a gift for the king.”

Arthur looked like he was thinking about it, and Merlin was about to make the same joke as usual when Arthur pointed at Merlin, realization dawning.  “I think Gwen mentioned something…” he said with finality, and when he walked out of the room, Merlin followed him, leaving the bed un-made behind him.

“Down here,” he said as he rushed down the corridor.  Turned out the other servants had decided it wasn’t fit for the king’s chambers, and the ones who thought it was meant for Gwen thought it best the queen not have to face it.  They moved it to storage until Arthur decided what he wanted done with it.

“Why do even care?” Merlin asked with mild surprise as they hunted it down together.  He had just planned to tease Arthur about it, not join him on a quest to find it.  “Do you even know how to use one?”

“Of course I don’t, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur snapped, pushing into a musty room full of old paintings and furnishings.  “I just want to see it.  It’s mine, I don’t have to explain myself.”

In the center with a sheet draped over it was the spinning wheel.  Arthur removed the sheet immediately and tossed it at Merlin who wrinkled it into a heap and dropped it on the floor.  The same bad feeling as the night before kicked into him and he felt his gut turn.

“Arthur, I don’t think-“

“Shut _up,_ Merlin,” he said as he reached in for it, as if in a trance.  He ran his fingers along the side of it, and looked around from the pedal on the ground to the wooden wheel, to the spindle up top.  “Who d’you think it’s from?” he wondered idly.  Merlin didn’t think he actually cared.

“Sire, you should-“

“Right, well, what use do I have with one of these,” he said, shaking his head as he stepped back.  “Cover it up then, then get me some lunch.” And he walked out of the room.  Merlin rolled his eyes and groaned and wondered irritably when he would get his own chance to eat. 

 

He decided to filch some food from Arthur’s plate.  As he brought back the assorted glazed meats, he shove a fistful of ham into his mouth and set down the hall on his way to deliver it. 

“Merlin,” Leon greeted from the side, and Merlin turned to grin at him, pleased to see Gwaine walking with him. 

“Sir Knights,” he said through the food with a nod, and Gwaine reached forward to ruffle Merlin’s hair with his gloved hand. 

“How’d Princess like his present?” he asked.

“The spinning wheel?” Leon let out a chuckle.  “Gwaine told us all about it.”

“He’s _obsessed_ with it,” Merlin said after he finally swallowed the ham.  “He’s too manly to show it though.  Maybe he thinks he can spin gold with it.”

Gwaine gave Merlin’s arm a pat.  “Wouldn’t that be the day?” he asked as he stepped back.  “It would certainly make him the stuff of legend.  How was your head, by the way?  Heard a rumor from a cranky majesty you missed breakfast.”

Merlin wrinkled his nose.  It was all the answer Gwaine needed; he gave a hearty laugh.  “I’ll be polishing armor after this, so I better get back to work,” Merlin said begrudgingly, and the two knights gave him leave.

When he got to Arthur’s room with the meal, the king wasn’t there.  He heave a sigh and dropped the plate on the table, grabbing the roll of bread before he set off to do his other tasks – the bed still half-made and ignored in the back of the room.

Turned out Arthur forgot he’d asked Merlin to fetch his lunch for him at all.  He was on the field, wearing the armor Merlin set out to polish.  He had to laugh at it.  Cross his arms, he leaned out a window and watched the knights fighting together for a while.  It was Arthur against Elyan, and it was no match really.  Even dazed as he seemed – as he had seemed all day – it didn’t take him long to bring the other man down.

He stood upright when he heard Gwen approaching him from behind.  He moved over and she stood behind him, watching the action through the window.

“He’s in an odd mood today,” she said, though Merlin could hear a fond smile in her voice; the concern was affectionate.  “Keep an eye on him, will you?”  Merlin looked over at her. 

“If I have to,” he groaned, and Gwen gave a gentle chuckle. 

 

When it came time for dinner, Merlin again served the meal to find that Arthur wasn’t even there.  It was Gwen, by herself, mildly less affectionate and slightly more concerned than earlier.  “I haven’t seen him since practice,” she said quietly.  There was an urgency in her voice.  “Do you think you could find him?”

Merlin nodded.  “I think I know where he is…” he muttered, and was immediately on his way to the storage room with the spinning wheel.  The bad feeling it gave him twice now couldn’t have been a coincidence, especially not with the way Arthur had so determinedly looked for it the first time.  

Sure enough, Arthur was exactly there, sitting at the low stool by the spinning wheel, looking perfectly absurd.

“It’s dinnertime, Arthur,” Merlin said from the doorway, his voice quiet.  Arthur didn’t seem to hear him.  “Your wife is waiting for you in your chambers.”  Merlin let a breath out through his nose, unsure if this was a magical trance or not.

“Leave me alone, Merlin.”

“What, with the spinning wheel?” He rolled his eyes, reaching for Arthur’s arm, but Arthur stood up fast and jerked his arm away.  Merlin stepped back and frowned.  “Arthur, come on, dinner’s getting cold.”

“I don’t want to.”  The response was childish, and while Arthur was often quiet petty, it felt weird and Merlin decided he didn’t like it.  He decided this was almost definitely a trance.

He reached out to touch Arthur’s arm again when the king ran his hand along the edges as he had earlier, stopping again at the spindle on top.  “What is this?” he asked, pressing his finger down against the tip hard enough to draw blood.  As a single drop fell down along the side of the needle, Arthur too fell hard and fast to the floor.

 

* * *

 

It never got easier with time.  No matter how many poisons people tried or curses sorcerers inflicted, Merlin never got used to the erratic pounding of his heart as he was faced with the possible death of his king.  He never grew accustomed to the kind of panic and insurgence of regret from so many secrets -- ranging from magic to love, from women to men and friendships to romance -- so many possible destinies and so much fate that remained unfulfilled... 

It felt like insanity at times

He wanted to tell Arthur everything.  He never did, though.  When his king came back, Merlin stagnated.  _Don’t change what you’ve got, don’t ruin this thing that’s fine as it is_.  So when Arthur was around, Merlin contented himself to know that it was enough.  And then again, Arthur would fall, seemingly forever, and Merlin would wish he’d told him all the things unsaid.  The secrets and love and magic, repetitive torture, constant pain.

And each time was harder than the last.

Maybe it was because Arthur always came back.  The curse was always broken and the poison always cured.  As many times as Merlin had to fear the departure of his king, he also had the delight of bringing him back.  Tears of grief were always followed by relief bubbling up through him as he laughed with relief and Gaius congratulated him for a job well done.

A fortnight had gone by this time.  Nothing.  No ideas from Gaius, no effective poultices, no word on magic or sorcerers discovered... There wasn’t even proof of some other masterplan meant to carry out by way of Arthur’s disappearance.

The worst part about it was that Arthur simply seemed asleep.  He didn’t have any kind of symptoms of some larger illness.  Gaius had ruled out sweats, fever, and a slowed heartbeat.  It seemed as though at any moment, he could simply wake up.  Tthis would all be over.

“It’s clearly magic,” Gaius said, and Merlin nodded.  This wasn’t the first time they discussed it. 

Merlin had already turned that over in his own mind time and time again, and he could only relay the story of the old woman to Gaius; the details were still fuzzy from his drunken haze, no matter how much he tried to recall.  Each time he retold it, he remembered something different: she had a disgusting, hairy mole; her cloak smelled of stale beer and piss; she had, in fact, been paid to bring the spinning wheel in...  It was cursed, Gaius concluded, and Merlin agreed – but by who and why?

Try as he might, Merlin couldn’t find the woman in town to question her.  Gwaine said he’d never seen her in the pub, day or night, before or after the event.

It didn’t take Merlin the full fortnight to remember the initial suspect that had leapt from his stomach to his brain, but Gaius wouldn’t hear much of it.

“ _Morgana_ ,” he said, long since having lost count of how many times he brought her up.

“That’s all well and good,” Gaius said, leafing through the pages of a book he’d uncovered at the archives, “but that doesn’t tell us much about the cursed object.”

Merlin moved to hover over Gaius’s shoulder while he sat at the table.  He hunched over and put one hand flat on the table.  “You onto something?” he asked, somewhat relieved to hear Gaius being distant and dismissive.  It meant his mind was working.

“Perhaps.”  Gaius pulled off his spectacles and looked up at Merlin, whose eyes were still on the page.  “There is a kind of magic that is untouchable by your talents.  I’ve not heard of it in a long time and I’m afraid to say I don’t know much about it.”

“Yeah?”  He sat down beside Gaius, an elbow resting on the table, and listened with intent.  A new kind of magic was both exciting and terrifying, especially considering what it was doing now to Arthur.  “So what do we need to know?”

“Well,” said Gaius, “from what I understand, this magic doesn’t even come from our world.”  He tapped the page with his glasses.  “You can only get there through an enchanted mirror.  Same in reverse.  Whoever planted the spinning wheel got their magic from the other side.”

“So... what does that mean?” Merlin asked, pulling the book closer to look at a diagram of the mirror -- tall, with seemingly intricate carvings not unlike a druid’s. A deer’s skull was mounted at the top.  “How do we cure it?  It’s not permanent, is it?”  He let the question sound hopeful, eager for Gaius to give him a reason to smile or a nod or anything to give him relief.

Gaius just folded his hands over the table and sat back, eyeing Merlin with pursed lips.  He was contemplative.  That scared Merlin.  Usually by the point where he started talking about it, he had also started to develop a counter-curse, cure, or poultice or salve, and _oh gods, that look means he’s worried about me_.

“Well?  What’s the problem?” he urged, laying the book to rest.  “Gaius?”

“From what I understand, the magic in that land works much like the magic you hear in fairytales,” he said.  “A red cloak can shield you from monsters, just the same as a curse can be cured by true love’s kiss.”

Merlin almost let out a laugh he was so relieved.  “That’s it?” he asked, bringing a palm to his forehead to push back his hair.  “That’s all?  True love’s kiss?”

Gaius gave a tight nod.  “I’d wager my life,” he said quietly.

All at once, he was up on his feet and reaching for his scarf.  “That’s easy, then, I’ll just tell Gwen and-”

“Merlin.”  He stilled, turning his head only to face his mentor.

“What is it?”

“It must be _true love’s_ kiss.”

Merlin’s heart began to pound.  That sounded a lot like implication and he didn’t like it at all.  He decided not to think on it.  And anyway, they had already been through this, Gwen’s kiss had broken a curse once before.  “Gwen’s probably _right there,_ Gaius, it’ll be fine,” he said more snappishly than he meant to as he got himself ready to go back out.

“I suspect there will be consequences,” Gaius warned slowly, following Merlin to the door.  “Should his true love not find him in an allotted time, but I’m at a loss for what that period may be, or what the consequences are, Merlin.  This kind of magic is a powerful thing.  It has far more to do with ultimate destiny than preset desire.”  He let out a sigh, let his eyebrow shoot up.  “I doubt a sorceress would pick a target with such an easy cure.”

Merlin pursed his lips and stopped to look to Gaius again, his arm struggling to get through the sleeve of his coat.  “Why are you even pressing this?” he asked.  The eyebrow.  “I’ll be back with the good news,” he said stubbornly, and he walked out.

 

What did Gaius know?  If Arthur and Gwen hadn’t loved each other, they never would have married.  And anyway, with a cure for the curse on the horizon, Merlin saw no reason to dwell on the matter; the thoughts Gaius’s doubt inspired were the kinds of thoughts Merlin only allowed himself when there was no hope.

Merlin had even helped to get them together!  Gaius had encouraged it at times, even helped him; it was ridiculous to deny it now.

He stopped to get a few flowers before he visited; they reminded him of Gwen, and how she used to pick flowers quite often.  Purple, a bit of white, and common but pretty.  When he finally went to Arthur’s chambers, just as he’d predicted Gwen was at his side.  Her attention was on letters and documents – maps, even – but she was with him nonetheless.  She looked up, her eyes dragging and tired, when Merlin gave a small knock on the door and popped his head in.

“Merlin,” she said with a weak smile.  He walked in with the flowers behind his back.  “Any news?  What’ve you got there?”

Merlin grinned at her, beamed, really, positively gobsmacked with the news he had.  “I think we’ve got it,” he said, bringing the flowers out for her.   She lilted her head to the side and reached out for them, cooing _they’re lovely_ as he went on, “Gaius says it’s a curse, that much you know, right?” Gwen nodded, arranging the flowers in her hand as she listened, a smile present but not too hopeful.  “True love’s kiss,” he said.  “That’s it. That’s the counter-curse.”

Gwen held the flowers down, set them lightly on the desk.  “Oh, Merlin,” she said breathlessly, shaking her head.  “I don’t _know_.” Her cheeks pinkened.  Her elbows clunked on the table as her fingers moved to cover her eyes and she let out a long, weary breath.  “I’ve dreamed of that.  What little girl hasn’t.”  She let out another _haaaah_ of air before letting her hands drop.  “It’s just a story.  A fairy tale.”

“You have to at least try it,” he rushed out, somewhat angry, perhaps still at Gaius, though he masked it with his urgency.  Gwen smiled at him, weak as before but warmer somehow.  With a small nod, eyes closed, she told him she’d do it and pushed herself up from the desk.

Merlin stood back as he watched her near him.  He looked so normal like that, on his back in his white tunic.  Just sleeping.  Not pale, like from a poison, or restless like from a normal curse... just, quiet.  Calm.  Peaceful.  He showed no sign of waking as Gwen sat beside him on the bed, the weight pulling him toward her. 

“This is so silly,” she said with a breathy laugh.

“Go on.”

“Alright, alright...” 

She took a heavy breath of air into her lungs and reached out to touch the side of Arthur’s face; he still didn’t stir.  A thumb, small, ran over his cheek.  No motion.

Merlin thought on the time they had spent in Gwen’s house that one time, wondering if she had touched him this way then.  He felt a pang of sadness, knowing what Gwen must feel like to watch Arthur like this and not know how to help him.  To go from a good day of teasing each other and loving each other... to this.  To nothing.  To lost chances and unspoken secrets. 

She leaned in, and Merlin unconsciously leaned forward on his toes, watching, eager, impatient.  She let out that nervous light laugh again and looked over to Merlin as if to say _I don’t know about this_ but she seemed to find the courage somewhere, because she did it then.

She moved in and pressed her lips against Arthur’s, held it there, waited.  Merlin’s stomach turned upside down.  How long did it take?  How soon would they know?  Should he help?  He should have waited to deliver the news, learned more about it first...

When Gwen pulled back, her eyes fluttered back open and she watched Arthur, her hand moving to his forehead to push his hair from his eyes.  A tear fell and she leaned down again, pressing a quick kiss against his forehead, then his nose; Merlin watch as she rested her forehead against his.  His heart pounded as he imagined what it felt like for Gwen.

A long moment passed.

“I didn’t think so,” she said as she slowly sat up again, eyes not leaving Arthur’s face. 

Merlin stood lamely across the room a moment hoping she was wrong.  He shifted his weight to the side of his foot and pressed a knuckle against the side of his thumb to feel the sharp reality, watching Arthur with a sort of expectancy that wouldn’t be met.  “I’m sorry, Gwen...” he whispered.  When she didn’t respond, he turned and walked out.

 

* * *

 

Arthur’s armor was polished.  His blades were sharpened, the bed was made, boots shined, floors mopped, linens washed, and the rest of his clothes folded or hung properly as they’re meant, but Merlin kept on his usual chores.  The floors, after all, didn’t just stay clean just because Arthur wasn’t using them, and the stables were certainly not self-sustaining just because the king was taking a long nap.  It was tiring, though -- more tiring than when Arthur _was_ using and denting his armor.  Merlin was far more exhausted now than the times when Arthur would boss him around and put more on his plate than he could handle.

Perhaps it was the lingering haunt of Arthur’s sleeping body that was perpetually in his room, or perhaps Merlin had become a bit of a lingering haunt himself.  Though Gwen had many duties as acting regent that kept her from their quarters, Merlin kept finding more and more reasons to do chores that had him inside there.  He started with the clothes he’d tucked away behind dressers and under the bed that he hadn’t felt like cleaning, until finally the only thing that was left to wash after the curtains and the carpets had been well-since taken care of were the linens on Arthur’s bed.  He could change his clothes perhaps, or move him and slide the sheets out from under him to wash those, but Gwen had specifically asked that he not be disturbed.  In case he was dreaming, she and Merlin had both agreed that they should let it be peaceful (more Gwen’s idea than Merlin’s, but he had agreed to it all the same).

The blanket and the top sheet, however -- those were free game.  It was early in the day and Gwen was at lunch with a council of advisors.  Merlin was much discouraged after having heard from Gaius that no new information had been gleamed, and he couldn’t help but stare at Arthur in something akin to longing.  He longed for his friend back, for his king, and he longed for something more that he didn’t quite want to admit as he pulled the blanket from the bed in a quick yank.  Arthur showed no sign of acknowledgment.

“‘Course you sleep through it, you miserable, lazy ingrate,” he muttered as he shook the blanket out and folded it to make it easier to carry.  The sheets had bunched up underneath somehow and twisted around Arthur’s arm, and his tunic, too, tugged a little upward so that the side of his stomach was exposed, paled now from the lack of sunlight.  “Getting a little loose round the stomach there, your Majesty,” he said as he yanked the sheet up and pulled the shirt down.  He knelt forward with a knee on the bed, the toes of his other foot still on the ground, and he stared without much subtlety at Arthur’s sleeping face.  The sleeping king...

It unsettled Merlin’s stomach, how much he looked ready to rise; every now and again his eyes would flicker under his lids, or he’d lick his lips and roll over.

With more time, the prospect of Arthur’s rescue only seemed more grim.  Even Kilgarrah offered no useful counsel, telling him nothing more than what he’d already learned and failed at: Arthur would be woken by his true love.

Out of a habit that formed after the first week of this affliction, Merlin reached forward and shook Arthur’s shoulder.  His hair shifted and he let out a shallow breath that sounded almost irritated, but beyond that, there was nothing. 

“Come on, you prat,” he said, shaking his shoulder again, if only for another little irritated huff.  “If you don’t get up this instant, I won’t polish your armor for the next year,” he threatened, his tone insufferable and arrogant.  Of course Arthur didn’t stir, and Merlin thought idly of threatening to kiss him to see how disgusted he could make Arthur, but as he opened his mouth, he felt a guilty pang in his gut. 

Gaius had been very quick to tell Merlin it was meant to be _true love_ , and while Merlin was aware of his lingering feelings that Gwen and Arthur’s marriage never quite pushed out of him, he hardly thought a few early mornings of time spent with a busy hand constituted as love.  He felt almost sickened by the thought of it, and he knew what Gwen must have felt, imagining herself kissing the sleeping Arthur with seemingly foolish hope that her significance in his life will make things okay.

He already saw what kind of disappointment came from the rejection the curse brought on.

His hand slipped from Arthur’s shoulder and he pulled himself off the bed, quickly covering him with a replacement blanket while he brought the other to air out in the sunlight.  Maybe he’d start questioning people about the old lady again.  It was time to start putting off his chores again, he thought.

 

* * *

 

“Merlin!”

“ _Shhh!_ ”

Merlin looked up from the book he was reading to see Gwaine in full knight’s armor, sword still in hand, rushing into the royal library, a very ornery Geoffrey behind him at his desk looking more than a little irritated.

“Right, sorry,” Gwaine said with barely a glance back at him as he made his way to Merlin who quickly shoved _Fairy Magicks_ under a loose leaf of parchment.  “Gaius told me I’d find you here.”  A loud _scrrrratch_ echoed through the halls as he pulled out a heavy wooden chair over the stony floor.  Gwaine didn’t seem to notice. 

“What is it?” Merlin asked.  “Does he have news?  Is something wrong?”

Gwaine shook his head.  “No news from Gaius, but I remembered something.”  He sheathed his sword and sat down in the chair with his muddy boots flying right up onto the table.  The look on Geoffrey’s face was priceless.  “That hag?  Who brought the spinning wheel?  I knew her once before.”

“What?” He grinned tentatively, the corner of his mouth shaking.  He didn’t want to get too excited, but this was the closest thing to a progression he’d had since Gaius tried telling him about the fairy magic.  Even so, he leaned over the table, his finger slipping out of his saved page. “Where?  From what town?”

 

Gwaine shook his head, leaning forward to snatch the book Merlin was reading.  “ _Fairy_ magic?” he asked, flipping the pages idly while Merlin shushed him with a raised brow and an outstretched hand to snatch the book back.

“I’m looking for information about the curse,” he whispered, eyeing Geoffrey warily.  There were very few books about magic in the accessible sections of the library, and this one only happened to be around because the magic in it was thought to be only found in tall tales; that was to say it wasn’t _real_ magic.  “What about the hag?  Do you know where she is?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Gwaine said, seemingly fine with forfeiting the object.  “She used to be a regular, back at a pub on the edge of Engred, before I got kicked out of course.”  He gave Merlin a dark, grim look and leaned in close.  “She’d come around with her coin and try to buy a new man each night, whether or not he was selling.”  A sage node and a smug smirk, and Merlin was shielding his eyes once more, giving Gwaine a playful push on his shoulder.  “Not kidding, though, mate.  She’d pay good money.  A poor man’s gotta do what he can, you know?”

“Too much, Gwaine.  Don’t tell me you...”

“Course _I_ didn’t,” Gwaine said firmly.  “I’ve got morals.  Though I think I did charm a few drinks with no attachments outta her at least for one night.”

“ _Quiet!_ ”

Merlin wasn’t even aware he was how loudly he was laughing.  He covered his mouth to stifle it and calmed himself down, shaking his head at his friend.  “So where was this again?” he asked, feigning only passing interest though he was taking mental notes.  Pubs.  Whore houses.  What was she after?  If it was Arthur’s body, she could have had it well by now, but she was in and out of Camelot so fast that Merlin couldn’t fathom a reasonable outcome. 

“Engred,” Gwaine offered again, dropping his feet down off the table.  “Can’t remember her name, but a brief description to anyone there should point you to her.”  He opened the fairy book and idly opened it, flipping through the pages without paying much attention.  “You thinking of going?”

“‘Course not,” Merlin said; the last thing he needed was one of the knights following him, Gwaine or not.  He needed to be able to use his magic freely, especially if this woman was a powerful sorceress using foreign magic.  “I’ll send someone, you know?  I should go tell Gaius.”  He grabbed the book off the table out from under Gwaine’s hands.  “Thanks for the info!” he said as he hurried out.

 

* * *

 

Gaius was all for Merlin’s departure.  In fact, he procured a specific errand for Merlin to run while he was there.  With a list of herbs he knew were sold by their local physician, Gaius was actually quite pleased with the setup. 

Merlin was to leave before sunrise, and he was to be gone for as long as he needed, though Gaius warned him not to be too long lest the curse seize the land.  He prepared the horse and his bag the night before so when Gaius rushed him out the door in the morning, he knew he wasn’t forgetting anything except-

“ _Merlin!_ ”

Gaius followed him to the door, a small satchel wrapped in cheesecloth in hand.  Merlin laughed and took the satchel, giving Gaius a quick hug.

“It’s not much, just enough to last the day,” he said lamely.  “I’m sorry I can’t give you more.  And Merlin.”  He pulled back from the hug, holding Merlin’s shoulders with a sharp raised brow.  “Did you finish reading the book?”

“It’s in my bag,” he said, lifting his satchel as if in proof.  “Don’t worry, Gaius, I’ll figure it out.”  He’d been trying to learn some of the spells and wardings, in part to defend himself against the types of magic within, but he never had been good at much else than more practical magic.  Making a ward required a different kind of patience than he was used to.  With a few more quick pats and _alrights_ and _farewells_ , Merlin was out the door and on his way out of the kingdom.

But as he was nearing the citadel walls, Gwaine was standing there in his regular tunic and leather vest, with his back against the gate, biting into an apple as he watched Merlin near.  “Where ya going?” he asked, using his own weight to push himself off the wall.

Merlin rolled his eyes in exasperation but chuckled all the same.  “I’m running an errand for Gaius,” he said, pulling the shopping list from his coat. 

“Yeah?  An errand, is it?  While Arthur’s still unconscious?”  He gave Merlin a fond clap on the back and grinned at him.  “You’re not a very good liar, Merlin.”  He took another bite of the apple.  “So, let me guess where you’re head-”

“Gwaine, if you want to come with me, I know I can’t stop you.”  He had to admit, he was a little relieved.  As much as he wanted to do it alone... having a friend along would be good.  Especially one he knew would have his back.  “Are you at least ready?  Standing around with an apple is charming and all, but it won’t get you there.”

Gwaine slapped his purse on his hip and the two of them grinned at each other before they went out.

The trip to Engred was almost frustratingly uneventful.  They stayed on the king’s road (what with the reliable excuse of the errand, there was no need to hide) and made it before the sun started setting.  Gwaine thought it was perfect -- he was certainly in the mood for a drink after the journey, and the pub was precisely where they needed to go.  The smoothness of it all was certainly a nice change, but Merlin thought it could mean either one of two things: This was either a trap, or they were in the wrong place altogether.

“I ought to find the physician,” he said, patting the pocket of his jacket with this list of supplies.  “I am actually here for Gaius, after all.”

Gwaine gave a pressed look and nodded.  “Alright... I should come with you then, yeah?  And _then_ the pub,” he agreed, hands on his hips; he looked more than a little reluctant to put off the drinking, but all the same, Merlin wanted to ask the physician a few questions, maybe about the mirror.

“Nah, you go on ahead.”

Merlin didn’t want Gwaine around for any rousing information.  Gaius said the man in town had been a companion back before the purge, nothing more than a casual peer, and that he and this physician had practiced both craft together.  It was a bit of a long shot, but if they couldn’t find what they were looking for, perhaps he could give Merlin a point in the right direction. 

The effort of shaking Gwaine proved uneventful though.  He knocked on the door under the Apothecary sign, and there was no response.  To be reasonable, Merlin thought, it was quite close to the evening.  Still, he could do nothing but mask his disappointment as he caught back up with Gwaine.

When they got to the pub, not much was happening.  The bartender seemed to recognize Gwaine, because Merlin got a clear attitude by proxy.  He ordered them both their pints and paid up front by demand; the bartender wouldn’t even look at Gwaine.  “Nothing to make you feel at home like a good surly attitude, eh, Merlin?” he asked, taking the ale with quick ease.

“Of course, yeah, _home_.  That’s definitely what that feeling is,” Merlin agreed with a playfully condescending nod as he drank from his own pint.  He would wonder how he always ended up drinking when he was with Gwaine, but he knew perfectly well why.  “So should I ask the bartender about her?” he went on a bit more seriously.  He gestured to some men in leather, drunkenly glaring at each other and everyone around them.  “Or the gentlemen in the back over there?”

“You’re so _cute_ , Merlin,” Gwaine said, after a pause for a healthy swig.  Merlin’s cheeks pinkened and he gave Gwaine a skeptical look. “Relax a few minutes first, yeah?  Enjoy the drink.  _Then_ business.”

Merlin all but rolled his eyes at the comment and leaned back a bit on the stool.  Relax?  Enjoy?  It was nice to do this with a friend he could trust and all, but regardless, Arthur was still cursed and the sooner they got to hunting for this hag, the sooner they would know if they were chasing a dead end. 

“Re _lax_ ,” Merlin repeated for his own sake, his hand in a fist round the handle stein’s grip.  “Business later, right.”  He let a slow breath out through his clenched teeth and leaned back as Gwaine gave his knee a playful but condescending pat.  “You say it so easily.  How are you not worried?”

“I’m not worried because we’re counting on you, Merlin.”  Merlin noted Gwaine’s voice seemed to be free of any kind of mockery (the way it would be if Arthur had said it), but all the same he narrowed his eyes as he listened.  “You _always_ pull through for Princess.  Always.  So there’s nothing to worry about, because you’re going to do whatever it is you do, and the day will be saved yet again with you in the backgound, letting someone else take the credit.”  He swilled his drink and leaned back, seemingly pleased with himself.

Merlin sighed and shook his head, hunching over his elbows on the table to face his ale.  He wasn’t in the mood to poke fun just now, but he kept that thought to himself.  “If we don’t figure this out, the whole kingdom could be cursed.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Gwaine said.  He was right.  Sleeping curses?  They apparently weren’t that uncommon in Camelot.  There was the time the court was put to sleeping by the singing witch, that was the first time Merlin ever even saves Arthur, not that he really wanted to at the time.  There was that time with Morgana, too... His mind went back to the hag.  If they could find her and kill her, then this would likely be over.

But Gaius had said this magic wasn’t like the magic they knew.

“Well, I don’t want it to be the last,” Merlin said finally, sitting upright again as he downed a good portion of his pint.  “Wait...”

“That’s the spirit, see?” With a toothy grin from Gwaine, Merlin’s spirits couldn’t help but rise.  The knight raised his pint.  “To Camelot’s vulnerability to curses!” he said, then leaned it, a brow raised.  “It’s gotta be around to be cursed, you know.”

Shaking his head, Merlin toasted.  “To Camelot being around,” he said lamely, though there was a bit of a laugh to it.

  
 

They managed to get through their first round of drinks together and were about to order a second when Merlin noted a very muscular man -- sleeveless, like Percival -- milling about with the barmaids.  He remembered that the hag had commented on “buying herself” a man.  Leaning into Gwaine, he pointed over to him. 

“You think he knows about her?” he asked in what he had meant to be a whisper.  Gwaine raised an arm up Merlin’s back and rested his fingers on his shoulder. 

As he did so, a shorter woman in a black hood crossed through the tavern like a fish swimming downstream.  She stopped right at the large man and reached up to touch his muscular arms.

“I’m gonna say yes,” he answered helpfully.

“She’s a witch.”  Merlin’s certainty startled himself, but he was having the same feeling now as he did that night with Gwaine.  A rush of darkness surged through him and sobered him totally, and his urge to protect those around him was heightened.  Gwaine’s grip on Merlin’s shoulder tightened, an urge to stay where he was, but Merlin couldn’t help himself.  In an instant, he was up and on his way toward her, but Gwaine snatched his wrist and pulled him back.  She didn’t seem to notice him.

“Gwaine, let me go,” he hissed, but Gwaine shook his head.  “I can handle this,” he said, snatching his wrist away.  Gwaine eyes pressed on Merlin, and while he didn’t look defeated necessarily, he didn’t try to stop him again.

Merlin turned back to the hag.

“Oy, you!”

She turned her head and did something Merlin could not have predicted: there was the chance of apprehension, anger, some kind of confrontational defensiveness, those were the things he expected.  She did none of those.  Instead, her crusty, paper-thin lips twisted in a smirk and she turned and ran as fast as she could out the door, her short legs carrying her thick body with much more agility than Merlin would have expected.

There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation before Merlin was out the door chasing her down.  He was pleased to hear Gwaine in tow, but he let his attention shift from that -- he had to find a way to slow her down.  As she ran, he looked for a stick to raise and trip her with, or a door or gate to open or close to block her path.  Nothing.  Not yet.

They were out the tavern, down past the stables and the closed-up market stalls nearby, then she cut through a pasture that took her to a hill by the river.  He wasn’t really surprised at her maintained speed; the age was likely an illusion, and though he often tired when he wore his, her magic was the alleged fairy magic.  The rules were different.

Round the hill by the river, she disappeared inside an old millhouse and slammed the door behind her.  Merlin ran into it with his hands, unable to stop all of his momentum, and Gwaine slammed it beside.  She managed to lock them both out.  He wanted to blast the door in with magic, but Gwaine took control instead.

He pushed Merlin back and kicked the door in with the heel of his boot.  It swung open to reveal a room full of absolutely nothing. 

No one.

Old oats and grain.

The inside was deadly still and Merlin stood dumbstruck at the entrance while Gwaine rushed in, sword unsheathed.  “Where are you?” he shouted.  Merlin walked in, eyeing the big, open room with sharp distrust.  Where was she hiding?  Why had she led them here?  What was the plan? 

Heaps of wheat grain, old and moldy, lined the walls and very little sunlight made it through the withered, foggy windows; the air in the mill was stale, unused and undisturbed.  _Where has she gone?_ he wondered, but then he saw it.  In the corner of the room sitting in a pile of brushed-aside wheat stalks: The mirror from the picture book.

It stood as tall and wide as Percival, and probably as heavy too; much of the frame was carved wood as in the picture Gaius showed him, but the base wrapped around the bottom of it like a tempest, dark and twisted in black iron.  The framework, Merlin discovered upon reaching out to graze his fingers along its edges, was not actually a carving but metal cast to look it -- and it was convincing, too.  He had thought the wood was aged and rotten.  The decay, put into the work by design, made the “carved” patterns jagged and splintered. 

It must have been forged by magic, he thought as Gwaine stepped into the reflection behind him.  “I saw this in one of Gaius’s books, this is what we’re looking for,” he said almost breathlessly as he stepped back to look at it in its entirety.  He stopped when his back hit Gwaine’s chest.  “She must have gone through it.” 

He pulled his bag off his shoulder and yanked the book out, hastily flipping to a page about the mirror that he found in the archives.  “It...” He glanced back to Gwaine.  “It takes magic to open it,” he said, wondering what to expect of his friend.  Gwaine had always been the most open-minded of the knights, but Merlin had to preserve his secrets; his childhood had taught him he didn’t know who he could trust.

“What?” He glanced at the book over Merlin’s shoulder.  His voice was strangely neutral, Merlin couldn’t read it.  “What are we gonna do, then?”

Merlin’s chest was heaving, heart pounding, as he wondered what choices he could make here.  He could tell Gwaine to go check something, but he already told him it needed magic.  He could tell the truth about the fairy magic and convince Gwaine that it didn’t need to be a sorcerer to do it.  Maybe he could even pretend to have Gwaine to do it...?  Cast the spell from behind him?

“It says, right here, you just gotta say that, right?  Can you read it?” Gwaine asked before Merlin could even come to a decision.  “I know I sure can’t.”

“It... it might not work for me.”  The admission came smoothly enough, it was the truth.  He didn’t need to tell Gwaine it was because his powers came from the gods of the Old Religion, whereas this was something else, something he still couldn’t quite understand because he’d never even seen it.  “I can try, but... You won’t tell Arthur?”

“What’s one more secret?” Gwaine asked, clapping Merlin on the back.  “We can’t let her get away, so get a move on, will you?”

And that was what led Merlin to perform magic in front of a Knight of Camelot... He stumbled over the incantation -- the words were obviously foreign to him, and the pronunciation was strange -- but after a couple attempts, he felt the familiar rush of a successful spell and he silently thanked whoever could hear him that at least that was the same.

The effect was instantaneous.  Merlin turned to Gwaine who was watching with something akin to reverence.  “I think we should hold hands going through it,” he said, holding a hand out to him.  “In case it tries to close.  We need to stay linked.”

“‘Course.”

Gwaine pushed forward and took Merlin’s hand, and, Merlin first, they both stepped through the barrier. 

 

It all felt surprisingly ordinary, like stepping through any kind of doorway to a sunny outside.  There was a rush of light into their eyes, an insurgence of fresh air and even a sudden burst of music: birds, grasshoppers and… _mermaids._

Mermaids?

They were definitely mermaids.

Beyond the rolling, grassy, picturesque hills, painted in speckles with alternating yellow and purple flowers and long, soft-looking green grass bent by a gentle breeze, were three naked women in the gentle river, their wet hair sticking to the sides of their faces and shoulders.  They sat on the rocks singing to each other in a way that made Merlin blush deeply.  Where their legs should be were fins in all different colors like fish from the sea (or so Merlin had heard, he’d never been).  One of them had a fin that was silver as the moon with blue along the sides, while the other two were both more pinkish along the body and creamy white on the fins along the bottom. 

Merlin could easily say they were memaids.

His breath hitched and he glanced back at Gwaine who had stopped dead to gawk.  Were mermaids good?  Bad?  The book was in his hands still, he thought he should check, but he didn’t have time.  The singing sounded awfully charming, and for Gwaine to be in some sort of thrall wouldn’t be totally unreasonable if they worked anything at all like a siren.  “Gwaine, the mermaids...” he said, hurriedly trying to find the page.

“Yeah, I _see_ them,” said Gwaine, taking a step toward them as if he was in some kind of pull.  Merlin reached out to snatch Gwaine’s hand, to yank him back. 

“Wait, not yet,” he hissed and Gwaine looked over to him, startled and shaken.  “Mermaids aren’t even _real_ as far as I know, I don’t think they’re good.”

“ _Not good_ , Merlin?” he said, gesturing to them.  “You’re telling me--”

He was cut off by a shrill scream and a loud splash as the three mermaids dove into the river.  Merlin jumped and looked around to find the threat, but when he saw none, he looked back at the mermaids and realized that, in the water now, they were staring at the two of them with their eyes poking out as if he and Gwaine were the threat.

“Hey now, ladies!” Gwaine called out.  They ducked lower into the water as if they were afraid.  “There’s no need to hide from us.”  He walked down the bank, closer to the river.  “We don’t even know where we are, ya know?”  Gwaine actually gestured back at Merlin for him to follow.

 _What are you doing..._ he thought uneasily as he followed Gwaine to the bank, tucking the book away into his bag.  “Gwaine...” he said warningly as the silver-finned mermaid came closer to the edge of the water and lifted her head out.

“You’re a lovely thing, aren’t you?” Gwaine asked, snatching a purple flower from the ground as he drew even nearer.  He held it out to her, and she lifted herself out of the water to pluck it from his fingers.  “Bashful smiles are a good look for you,” he said, kneeling by the water now.  Merlin was standing two steps back, admittedly embarrassed by their uncovered breasts.

“Gwaine...” he said again, watching the other two as they approached.  “Be careful.”

Gwaine glanced back at him.  “This is Merlin,” he said to the girls in the water.  “He’s not as charming as me, it’s okay.” 

“Hey!”

They giggled and pulled back somewhat while Gwaine adjusted so his butt was on the grass.  “Name’s Gwaine.  And you are...?”

“Marina,” the pink one said with a shy smile, quickly putting the flower into her hair so that she could comb it in with her fingers.  “These are my sisters, Ondine and Doris.”

“Marina, don’t talk to the humans,” one of them whispered – Ondine, Merlin thought – though she wasn’t very convincing; her smile held firm and she kept swimming closer to get a look.  “If father finds out-”

“Then don’t _tell_ him,” Marina shot back in a whisper, then returned her attention to Gwaine.  “What are you doing here, by the river?  Most men stay away.”

“Yes, and maybe we should,” Merlin suggested, though the weight of most of his uneasiness had actually melted away.  He didn’t trust the mermaids, but he had to admit, the whole _giggling young girl_ act wasn’t all too threatening. 

“We’re looking for someone.  Maybe you can help?”

Asking them for help.  Right.  Merlin knew he should have trusted Gwaine.  Still, he wasn’t too easy about it.  They could easily charm both them and lie.  What if they were a part of the trick?

“A woman?” said one of the Doris.

“A hag,” Gwaine answered.

“ _The_ hag,” said Ondine, taking hold of Marina’s shoulder.  “The one who took-”

“I’ve seen her,” said Marina, her tone more bold now.  “The hag.  She walks along the river and uses her magic to silence us.”  She frowned deeply, swimming back toward the deeper center of the river.  The sudden darkness to her made Merlin weary. 

“Well that’s not very nice,” said Gwaine.  “She cursed one of our friends, we’re trying to find her to reverse it.”  Doris whispered a quiet _oh no_ while Ondine frowned deeply. 

“What kind of curse?”

“A sleeping curse,” said Merlin, to which both sisters echoed _a sleeping curse?_   “Do you know anything about it?”

“I know it can be broken with true love’s kiss,” said Doris.  Marina and the other nodded in agreement.

Merlin had to fight not to roll his eyes, especially at the pained look Gwaine seemed to give him out of the corner of his eye, but he did take a step closer.

“Can you tell us where to find her?” Merlin was relieved Gwaine was the one to ask – it took the attention back off of him.

“We see her going up the river,” Marina answered.  “Past where we can follow.  It’s shallow and rocky, and she goes into the forest.”

“There’s a tower in the forest,” said Doris **.** “That’s where she goes.”

“Yes, to the tower,” Ondine agreed.  “Go to the tower.”

“You might find her there.”  Marina gave a meaningful nod.

There was something suspicious about the hastiness with which they sent them there.  Merlin didn’t know that he believed them, but he didn’t know that they had much of a choice either.  “On the bright side,” he whispered, kneeling down next to Gwaine, “We know she wants us to follow her, so if they’re lying, they’re likely still leading us to her.”

Gwaine nodded.  “Thanks for the help, ladies,” he said, flashing them a flirtatious grin.  Merlin rolled his eyes and laughed.

“We have a friend in the tower!” Marina said sharply, as if she had tried to hold herself back but couldn’t resist.  “The hag locked her up.  She visits her often and comes around to torment us after.”

Gwaine looked back at Merlin.  “Sounds promising, I’d say.  Maiden in a tower?  This job was made for me.”

Merlin rolled his eyes.  He had to admit, the mermaids really weren’t that menacing, as much as he felt he should distrust them.  “Thanks,” he said as he pushed himself back up on his feet, then walking on without waiting for Gwaine’s flirtatious goodbyes.  A knight of Camelot could catch up with a measly manservant, he thought, perhaps feeling a bit glib.

Gwaine did catch up in only a few minutes.  “It seems earlier in the day here,” Merlin said as Gwaine came up behind him, his eyes on the sky.  “Wasn’t it late back at the mill?”

“I guess magical portals have that effect,” Gwaine said, clapping Merlin on the shoulder.  “All I know is I need to eat.”

Merlin laughed and looked back at Gwaine.  “ _Really?_ ” His voice was incredulous.  “You just ate,” he said, smacking him lightly on the stomach with the back of his hand.

A small _oof_ left his mouth and he leaned against Merlin as they walked.  “I just _drank_.”

“Either way, we can’t stop.”  Merlin sighed and afforded Gwaine a sideways look while they walked.  “You could go back and ask Marina if she’ll catch you a fish...” he teased, stopping.  “But we have to find the woman.  We’re running out of time.”

“Arthur’s gonna be there when we get back, Merlin,” Gwaine said with a voice that had softened.  It made Merlin sigh.  “Pretty sure in his state, he’s not going anywhere.”  It was true, and Gaius had even said that Arthur’s vitals were constant.  Even without eating or drinking, he didn’t seem to be weakened in any sense.  Only thing was, Merlin hadn’t told Gwaine or anyone else about the consequences Gaius tried to warn him about, not that he even knew what they were really.  “We don’t really have much time...” he settled on vaguely.

“That’s awfully unspecific.”  Gwaine frowned, watching Merlin.  “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”  Somewhat sheepishly, Merlin looked to the ground and continued walking on. 

“If we don’t find a way to reverse this stupid curse, the rest of Camelot would fall into it as well,” he said lamely, his feet dragging on. 

“Alright.  You already told me that much.”

“Gaius thinks so, at least,” Merlin pressed.  “It’s in the book.”  He patted his bag.  “The magic here, it’s the same from the stories, you know, with the girl who falls in love with the monster in the castle.  Revenge magic.”  He cringed; it seemed from the tales magic was either innately evil or benevolent, but apart from fairy god mothers, it was mostly evil.  “It would have been better if Arthur was turned into a beast...” he admitted, in part trying to change the subject.

“Not much would change, would it?” Gwaine asked, though his voice sounded pensive.  “The rest of Camelot, huh?  Even us, or no ‘cause we’re here?”

Merlin shrugged.  “I don’t know.”  Licking his lips, he set to walking in a straight line down the bank.  “I mean, maybe... Yes?  I don’t think so.”

“Well, one thing’s certain,” Gwaine said, reaching into his pocket to pull out an apple.  “Pressure’s off.  If we take too long, they all take a nap, and no one’s any the wiser, am I right?”

Merlin had to laugh at that.  If he had to be stuck with any of the knights, it was definitely Gwaine he would have chosen.  “I’m glad you came,” he said with a heavy sigh.  Even if he had to hide his magic, Gwaine’s companionship was far better than being alone.  Merlin might have talked to the mermaids, sure, but he can’t say he’d have been as effective getting the information from them.  “Thank you.”

“No need for that, Merlin,” Gwaine said, bumping their shoulders again.  He took a big bite of his apple and chewed with his mouth open then held it out to Merlin.  “You want some?”  Merlin took the apple and rolled it over in his hands as he thought about what they were doing.  A girl in a tower?  A hag who put her there?  This was not the weirdest quest he’d ever been on, but for some reason, it felt the hardest.  After taking a big crunch out of the apple, he passed it back to Gwaine and they kept walking until they reached the forest.

Darkness fell over them fast, but not for the lack of sunlight -- the canopy of the forest was thick, and it felt as though there were storm clouds coming in.  The vibrancy of the flowers and the grass were cut off immediately and everything turned to gray or brown with hardly any in-betweens. 

Gwaine kept it light, though.  He joked with Merlin, sometimes with gossip about the other knights, other times making fun of Arthur’s arrogance, but most of it was idle chatter that really held no weight.  It kept Merlin’s mind off the fact that he’d been walking for more than a day’s worth now, with the dusk-turned-high-noon venture through the mirror and all.  His calves ached and his heart was _tired_ and strained against the exertion. 

Finally, he stopped to sit down well before where he figured the tower should be.  “I need to rest,” he said with a bit of a frown; he was disappointed in himself.  If it was a different time here, then how did he know time would pass at the same pace as back home?  Outside the mirror?  He wanted nothing more than to keep going, but sharing an apple and a portion of leftover cheese with Gwaine had done nothing to satiate the growing hunger that came from skipping a meal. 

“And eat,” Gwaine said, taking a seat beside Merlin.  “I’ll do the hunting if you start the fire.”  Neither of them set to move anywhere.  Instead, they lingered in silence a moment before Gwaine laughed and bumped his shoulder against Merlin’s.  “Taking that as a yes?”  With a groan, he pushed himself up and ruffled Merlin’s hair. 

With a little eye roll, Merlin agreed to get up and start working on the fire.  After gathering a bit of wood, he found a clearing for them to rest in.  He set up the fire there, a quick outstretched hand and golden eyes getting the kindling started of course.  Afterward, he sat with his back against a fallen log which he had moved closer for seating and let the heat warm him over.  Though there wasn’t much of a chill to the air, the tiredness was beginning to soak his bones -- and the moment alone drew his thoughts to Arthur, who was likely laying in his bed still completely unaware of the curse or the consequences.  _What did you do to piss this hag off?_ he wondered bitterly, holding his arms around his stomach.  Whatever the cause, Merlin would put an end to it. 

When Gwaine came back, already set to skinning the rabbit he caught, he sat on the log just beside Merlin without much of a word at all.  In fact, something of a comfortable silence fell between them.  The fire cracked, shaking Merlin from his thoughts on Arthur.  Looking to distract himself, he withdrew the book on fairy magic from his bag for a chance to read it over.

“What is that?” Gwaine asked as he sank some skewers into the rabbit meat.  There was a hesitation in Gwaine’s voice that almost startled Merlin.  He glanced back at his friend.  “Is it like a book of spells?  It had the one in it...”

“Not really,” Merlin answered, flipping to the cover to show Gwaine.  “You might think that.  Or, maybe I guess it is?”  He opened it again to the bookmarked page, holding it out for Gwaine.  “Gaius said the magic in it wasn’t supposed to be real, but here we are.”  Just beyond the page with the mirror was a vague, misshapen map with only a few landmarks.  “I think this is meant to be some sort of island.  And I think this is where we are.”  He pointed to a grouping of trees off apart from a river.  “That might be where we came in, I don’t know...  And here, the tower?”

Gwaine nodded and started cooking the rabbit meat while Merlin studied the book.  The silence this time was stiff, and Merlin wondered idly what Gwaine thought of the fact that this journey was very much laced in magic.  Judging by his reaction to the mermaids, he didn’t seem all too put off by it, but it was so hard to tell.  With a sigh, he brought his focus back to the pages sprawled out on his knees.  A while passed and while the stormclouds seemed to have passed, the sun had clearly begun setting. 

“You know, this ‘true love’s kiss’ thing...”  Merlin kept his eyes on the book while Gwaine spoke.  “You didn’t say anything back there.  Did you already know about it?”  A short nod.  He gave a quick glance at Gwaine who wasn’t looking at Merlin.  It got even darker in the forest now, so the light from the fire was just enough to give an outline of the edges of Gwaine’s face in something like a golden silhouette, much light Arthur’s only less… defined.  Merlin laid his legs flat to get more light on the book, but it had little effect.

“And?  Did you tell Gwen?”

“I did,” he said, flipping the page in the book though he couldn’t read much both with the conversation and the low light.  “And it didn’t work.”  He gave Gwaine a look of sorrow and closed his book in his lap.  “Do you know what it’s like?  Watching someone ache...”

“Think I can imagine.”

“It can’t be the way to break it.”

“‘Course not.”  That statement hung thick in the air.  Merlin tried to pretend he didn’t hear it, but there was something unsaid that tugged at Merlin’s heart.  He hated it.

Gwaine passed a piece of meat over to Merlin who took it and ate it gratefully. The talk from there went to rabbit meat and anecdotes.  Merlin got the chance to go into detail about the time he and Arthur got caught in the net with two dead rabbits and had to stay the night like that.  It was pretty funny in retrospect, and Gwaine laughed at all the right times.  Eventually Gwaine slid down the log to sit on the ground next to Merlin and they both managed to fall asleep sitting up like that, like children roughing it on their own.

When Merlin woke up barely at daybreak, it wasn’t because he was rested.  There was a song in the air, same as before, with the voices of birds and grasshoppers and a woman.  He looked around and saw no one but Gwaine snoring beside him, so he shook his friend’s leg before standing up to have a look around.

“Keep it down, will ya?” Gwaine asked, falling onto his side in the dirt.  “I was dreaming about Marina.” 

Merlin laughed and found a twig to throw at Gwaine before looking around again.  “It’s not me,” he said.  “I think it must be the girl in the tower.”

“Oh, well in that case...” Gwaine muttered, but he hardly moved much.

“You’re starting to act like Arthur, you oaf,” Merlin teased, coming back over to Gwaine to kick his foot.  “Get up.  We should follow her voice.”

With a loud groan, Gwaine heaved himself up and they set on their way together.  The voice sounded alarmingly close the whole way for quite a long walk – it was at least three quarters of an hour before they reached the tower, and when they did, the singing stopped. 

It was in the middle of a clearing in the forest, and it looked out of place in the center of all the tall, drab-looking trees.  The grass was full of more of those yellow and purple flowers and the sun was nice and warm again, melting the dark chill of the forest from Merlin’s bones.  The tower itself was like a stone watch tower – tall and narrow, with a turret at the top.  The only problem was that there were no doors or windows to get in. 

“Well I suppose it’s not meant to be easy, is it?” Gwaine asked as he and Merlin encircled the tower in opposite directions.  “Hello!  Anybody in there?” he shouted.  “If you can hear us, we’d like some breakfast!”

Merlin felt it had to be a trap.  As Gwaine shouted, Merlin watched the edges of the forest, but the only response they got came from the top of the tower; it was a woman’s voice, young and brash and nothing at all like the sweet voice that had lured them in.

“Hey, I’m up here!” she shouted, leaning so far out the window she could have easily fallen.  She waved both her arms down at Merlin and Gwaine, and Merlin felt almost immediately warm toward her.  He hit Gwaine’s upper arm with the back of his knuckles and pointed up.  “I can’t come down!”

Gwaine grinned at her.  Merlin thought he’d let his friend handle this one.

“Well how do we get up!” he asked.

The girl put her hands on the edge of the windowsill and paused as if she were thinking about it.  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.  “Hey, but I’ve got food.  If you can help me down, it’s yours!”

“Perfect!” Gwaine exclaimed, throwing his hands up as he looked over at Merlin.  Then, back up the tower.  “I’m Gwaine, and this is Merlin.”

“Name’s Rapunzel.”  She didn’t sound like she cared much, and Merlin laughed at the frankness of her next statement: “Free me and eat!”

“Free food.  Just gotta help the damsel in distress.”  He clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he set to encircling the tower once more. 

Merlin took Gwaine’s perusal as an opportunity to talk to the lady himself.  She was still watching the both of them, seemingly amused.  “Have you got anything to throw down?” Merlin asked.

“What, food?  Yeah, I’m gonna feed you _before_ you get me out, _that’s_ likely,” she called down sarcastically, and Merlin laughed incredulously, both amused and taken aback by her boldness.  She reminded him a bit of Arthur.

“No, like _rope_ or something!” he said through his laughter, and she let out a sharp _oh!_ before retreating into the window.

“You smooth-talker,” Gwaine said as he came back around to stand at Merlin’s side. 

When she came back to the window, she held up a silvery braid, but she pulled back almost as soon as she had reappeared.  “You’re the boys looking for the hag, right?”  There was apprehension in her voice. “To break the curse on your friend?”

“Our king,” Gwaine corrected.  “It’s a _royal_ quest.”  Of course he would flirt from the bottom of a tower.  Merlin pressed his lips tight in an attempt to hide the stupid smirk growing from fondness for his friend. 

“She climbs up my hair to see me,” she said, then leaned out to ruffle it, short as as a boy’s, with her fingers.  “I hacked it all off a few days ago, told her I let the wind take it.  Cheap lie, I know, hair’s heavy as hell.  But it’s all in a braid, see?”  She held the silvery rope up again -- it was blonde, come to think of it, just like her hair.  “Think it’s strong enough to hold ya?”

Gwaine shrugged.  “No way to know without trying.”  He looked over to Merlin who shrugged and nodded back.  “Well, Rapunzel!  Let down your hair, and we’ll try it out!”

Sure enough, she did.  “I’ve got a hold on this end, so be quick about it!” she said as the braid fell, long enough to graze the grass at the bottom of the tower.  Merlin was impressed. 

Gwaine didn’t even hesitate before reaching out to take a hold of it and he tugged it lightly.  “You sure you got it?” he asked a little skeptically.

“If she can climb it when it’s still attached to my head, I’m pretty sure you can climb it in my hands,” Rapunzel said irritably.  “Don’t insult me.”

Gwaine actually laughed.  “Tough girl,” he said over at Merlin before he hoisted himself up.  It took him a few good moments, but he made it to the top with Merlin watching from the bottom, not sure if he she try climbing up next.  To be honest, he wasn’t too big on the idea of climbing up, not with his arms. 

“Alright up there?” he asked once Gwaine was out of his sight.  “Do you need me?”  The braid hung limp and he reached out to grab it, but there was no response.  “Hellooo!”

There was a moment longer of silence before Merlin heard Rapunzel’s loud voice telling Gwaine, “Yeah, _so_ not impressed,” followed by Gwaine’s loud laughter.  Merlin waited at the bottom with something of a smile before Rapunzel poked her head out.  “I’m gonna climb down and Gwaine here’s gonna hold onto it with his big, strong, _manly_ muscles, alright, Merlin?” she asked, and Merlin nodded. 

“How’s Gwaine getting back down?” he asked, just as Gwaine threw down a wadded up sheet and blanket out the window over Rapunzel’s head. 

“You’re both gonna catch me,” he said before disappearing again.  Just as he did, she kicked her leg over the side of the window and began her descent.  Merlin held the bottom of the braid steady, but it didn’t take her long at all to get to the bottom.  She immediately fell onto her back in the grass, giving a hearty laugh that sounded somewhat like a cackle.  “You’re lifesavers,” she said with a huge sigh, presumably of relief.  “Gwaine I tucked the basket of food under the bed!”  She turned to Merlin.  “I hid it in case he tried to get away with his payment early.”

“That’s fair, he’s a bit of a sleaze,” Merlin agreed conspiratorially.  Up close, she was a bit of a heavier girl than Merlin had expected for someone locked up in a tower under a hag’s watch, but she seemed warm and happy and Merlin liked that about her.  “So, the hag?” he asked, an attempt to rope the conversation back in as the braid dropped to the ground.  “You know how to find her?”

“Maybe,” Rapunzel said vaguely as she sat up.  “I’m after someone myself-”

“Catch!”

Merlin looked up in time to see a package drop from the tower and he tried to catch it but fumbled and missed. 

Rapunzel stood up and grabbed the sheet and blanket, lining them up together.  “Let’s get this over with,” he said tiredly while Merlin took hold of the other ends.

“The singing earlier... Was that you?” he asked, suddenly remembering.  They both moved along to the bottom of the window and looked up to make sure they were lined up.

“No, not me,” she said, then under her breath, “there’s no way this is gonna work.”  Sure it would.  Merlin was already figuring the logistics of slowing Gwaine down as he fell with his magic.  A slow landing could be soft, and if it was soft enough, his landing wouldn’t yank the sheets out of their hands and make him hit the ground.

Though apparently Rapunzel did have a pretty good grip.

“Who was it then?”  He looked back up to make sure Gwaine wasn’t about to drop yet, then another question struck him: “How did you know about us?”

Rapunzel shifted, not like she was hiding something, but like she didn’t feel like explaining it.  “It’s the fairies, just -- can we get a move on?”  She gave the blankets a quick shake and shouted up to Gwaine, “We’re ready!”

He didn’t seem to have to be told twice.  Merlin had to admit he was surprised at how willing Gwaine was to make the leap, but either way, he set his focus to a whisper of magic and slowed Gwaine’s fall just enough that his landing didn’t tear the blankets from their hands.  Together, Rapunzel and Merlin yanked the blankets to push Gwaine onto his feet and he scrambled up, dusting himself off.

“Breakfast time,” was his only response to the whole ordeal.  Merlin took the blankets and began folding them over his arms instinctively while Rapunzel shook out her skirts and Gwaine unwrapped the basket.  “Apples, bread, cheese, boy am I gonna feel like a winner...”

“So Rapunzel,” Merlin said loudly when she carried a look of someone about to set off.  “The fairies were the voice, you said?”

She rose to her toes and looked between Merlin and the forest almost as if in an impatient anxiousness before settling back onto her heels, looking at him.  “Yeah, why?”  She gestured out with her thumb.  “I really wanna get going, so...”

“Why did they take us to you?”

“Oh, well, the mermaids asked them to tell me you were coming, so I asked them to make sure you found the place.”

That made sense, he thought, though he was curious why the mermaids and the fairies worked so well in tandem, and why the cared so much about the human girl in the tower.  “And the hag?” he asked; those questions were irrelevant now that they were done here.  “Do you know where to find her?”

In the relatively close distance, Merlin could see Gwaine portioning out the food.  He was making rations. 

“Kind of... I- I really want to get moving, can you just...”

There was no reason why she shouldn’t tell them.  Merlin watched her, the blankets still folded over one of his arms while the other held it steady over his stomach.  “Just take a moment to explain?” he asked in a plea.  “She’s cursed a friend of ou- our _king_.  A sleeping curse.”

Rapunzel’s face seemed to scrunch up in some sort of acknowledgment, and she nodded, eyes on the ground.  “I know that feeling,” she conceded, shoving her hands into the pockets of her skirt.  “Well... Best I can tell you, she might be at her old castle... I’ve kind of been holed up in my room for a while,” she gestured at the tower, “so I don’t know much anymore.”  She shook her head.  “That’s not gonna help you break the curse, though,” she said plainly.

Merlin put a hand up to stop her.  “Thank you, where is the castle?”

Rapunzel generously took a moment to explain to both Gwaine and Merlin how to find the castle -- deeper into the forest, at the base of a mountain but the top of a hill -- before hurrying Merlin and Gwaine into quick hugs and running off.

Gwaine shared their breakfast with Merlin before they head out.  They sat together in the tall grass with their backs against the stone tower, munching while Merlin teased Gwaine for his failed flirtations.  The book laid open to the map on his lap while he tried to pinpoint her directions exactly.

“I could hear the rejection from down here,” he said with a grin.

“Ehhh, Merlin, you know she was just playing hard to get,” Gwaine answered as he cut off a piece of cheese and stuck it on a hunk of bread for Merlin.  “And -- what do you think?  Should I grow out my hair that long?” 

Merlin leaned up against Gwaine, taking a big bite of the bread that was handed it to him.  “It would certainly be a look.”

* * *

 

The journey to the castle was much longer than the journey to Rapunzel’s tower.  Luckily, the daylight in that reality ran longer than the daylight back home -- though it did give Merlin pause.  How long would this trip have taken back home?  Was two days here shorter or longer than two days in Camelot?  If Gwaine was thinking the same thing, he certainly didn’t let Merlin know he had any cares at all, which while refreshing could also be a bit tiring.  He had to remind himself that Gwaine did care sometimes, otherwise he wouldn’t have come.  It wasn’t that he doubted his sincerity.  Rather, the carefree act was beginning to feel strained, especially as they grew tired toward the end of the day.

After the tower, they were in out of the sunlight and into the forest again, and after the forest a wide valley that seemed endless until they finally found the rolling hills with purple grass.  As the sun set, they approached the unmistakable landmark Rapunzel told them to watch out for: a giant spire that was just out of view from the valley but easy to see from the top of the first purple hill.  It was apparently from the unused allegedly cursed wing of the witch’s old castle.  Behind it was a tall, stony mountain, and where spire and the mountain met would be their target.

Finally there and weary from a long day of walking, Merlin noted that the castle had a very _homey_ feel to it -- not at all the kind of feel he expected to get from a hag of a witch.  The gardens round the grounds were in full bloom, making the curves of the hills seem softer here, comforting even.  As they got even closer, they noticed that the little gatherings of bees round the blossoms were not actually bees at all, but fairies.  They learned this as Gwaine swat one that flew near his face.

It latched onto his hand and shouted at him angrily.

Gwaine pulled his hand back and looked at it amazedly and held it out for Merlin to see.

“I didn’t know fairies were boys,” he said, and the fairy on his hand huffed, arms crossed over his chest, and turned his attention to Merlin.

“You alright?” Merlin asked him, leaning in to hear what it had to say.  He plopped down in Gwaine’s palm with a petulant frown.

“I was trying to ask if you were the two who helped Rapunzel,” the fairy said.  “She sent word to expect you.  I don’t know if I should help you anymore.”

Merlin looked to Gwaine.  “Apologize,” he said flatly.

Gwaine’s head reeled back as if he took personal offense to the command, but he didn’t keep up the act.  With his best charming grin, he looked down at the little fairy in his hand and told him, “Sorry, mate, I didn’t know what you were.”

The fairy took a moment to consider the apology, looking between Merlin and Gwaine as though he were evaluating the worth of staying angry at them.  He took in a long breath and heaved a sigh, using Gwaine’s finger to pull himself back up so that he was standing again.  Once he was, he flapped his wings and lifted himself to hover right in front of Gwaine’s face again, only inches from his nose.  Pointing his finger accusingly, he said stubbornly, “I’m only forgiving you because you because you’re not worth my energy,” then he fell back somewhat so that he could look between them easily.  “The hag hasn’t lived here in years, _thank_ fully.”  Merlin wondered idly if irritation was this fairy’s natural state. 

“So we won’t find her here?” he asked, his voice giving away more desperation than he wanted to show.

“ _Ugh_ , you humans are so _dumb_ ,” the fairy said.

“Hey, now!” said Gwaine.

“If – you – go – in,” the fairy said in a slow, deliberate and very condescending manner, “then the lady of the castle will show you her hospitality.”  He hovered a moment in the air looking between Merlin and Gwaine expectantly, but when he didn’t seem to get what he wanted, he threw up his hands in resignation.  “If you help her like you helped Rapunzel, you’ll end up closer to the hag.”  He paused waiting for them to understand. “Honestly!”

Merlin pressed back a laugh (the fairy was alarmingly impatient for not being very helpful at all) and gave a nod.  “Thank you for your help...” he said with a smile.

“You call that help?”

“I call it _you better do it or you won’t find the hag_ ,” the fairy said before flying back off toward the flowers.

“Right, then.  We’ve got mermaids, maidens in towers, and rude little fairies.”  He clapped Merlin on the back before heading to the castle entrance.  The sunset cast a dark shadow over it; while it did manage to help make the gardens glow in the purple and orange light, the castle only managed to look all the spookier for it.  All the same, they entered the castle and were greeted by a very old servant in a very nice jacket.

The servant looked between the two, mildly alarmed by the late intrusion, and asked them for their names.  As they waited for him to inform the lady of their arrival, Gwaine picked at a plate of fresh fruit in the antechamber.

“These strawberries are delicious,” he said, while Merlin looked around at the sculptures and paintings.  This place seemed older than Camelot, and darker too.  The candles only served to emphasize the darkened aging of the stone walls, and the tall ceilings made the two guests of the look dwarfed. 

“I’ll bet they are,” Merlin agreed with his eyes on the rib-vault ceilings, though he couldn’t ignore the fruit for long -- he was hungry.  Turning to join Gwaine, he wondered how long this would take exactly, or what the lady would need help with.  If it was something as simple as getting Rapunzel from the tower, he’d be all too happy to assist.  “Oh, they _are,_ ” Merlin groaned after taking a bite for himself.  He took a handful of them in an open palm so he could walk around and look some more, eating them.  “I’ve a bad feeling about this task.”

“You’ve got a bad feeling about everything.”  Gwaine moved to walk beside Merlin, grabbing a strawberry from Merlin’s hand as he spoke. 

“And I’ve always cause for it,” Merlin countered with a small laugh, an attempt at playful banter but a bad one.  He was too tired to argue.

He was surprised, though, at the sincerity of Gwaine’s answer: “I know,” he said, bumping his shoulder against Merlin’s. 

They stopped in front of a painting of a healthy-sized lord in a wealthy suit, nose red, smile big and pompous.  It was mostly normal, except that the color of the man’s beard.

The hair on his chin was blue as a clear summer sky.

“That’s my husband,” said a warm woman’s voice as she entered the chamber.  She walked in a slow, measured gait, hands folded over the front of her bodice as she moved to stand beside them.  “He’s away on business right now, so I’m afraid he can’t come out to greet you.”

Merlin turned out to face her while Gwaine’s eyes kept on the portrait, as if he were studying it.  The ;ady was clearly older, and though the fine clothes she wore were well-fitted and elegant, they were a drab gray. 

“I am Lady Marge.”  She gave a shallow nod in a restricted curtsy. 

“I’m Sir Gwaine, a knight of Camelot.”  He pulled away from the portrait and gave the Lady a toothy grin.  “And this is Lord Merlin.”  Merlin shot Gwaine a nervous look, though if Marge had sensed the lie, she was too polite to show any sign of it.

“Well, Lord Merlin-”

“Just Merlin is fine, m’lady,” Merlin said, shifting somewhat awkwardly under the pressure of the title.

Marge smiled at him and gave a slow nod of acknowledgment.  “Of course, Merlin.  Perhaps the two of you will wash up and join me for dinner?  It grows lonely in the castle, and I’d love hear how you ended up at our door.”

That was how Gwaine and Merlin came to be dinner guests in Bluebeard’s dining hall.  That wasn’t his name, Marge told them, but it was what people called him, and it was what he had grown accustomed to.  He inherited the castle from one of his past wives who had left him shortly after their marriage.  While Bluebeard was away, he left Marge with full access to the castle, so should Merlin or his knight need a thing, they need only ask.

When the food was brought out to them, Merlin had to admit to himself that it felt good not to be the one serving it.  He wondered if Gwaine lied to spare him the inconvenience, or if there was something else he was scheming.  Either way, it gave them an authority that they shouldn’t have, which gave them an edge should his bad feeling turn them up against something or someone.

“So, Merlin,” said Lady Marge, turning her soup over with her spoon.  “If I understand correctly, you’re looking for the witch who cursed your friend?”

Merlin gave a nod, poking at his own salad with a fork; his table manners were not very convincing if he was supposed to be a Lord, but Lady Marge seemed to be kind enough not to call him on it.  “Our king, actually,” he said with a sigh.

“Have you really never heard of Camelot?” Gwaine asked, though it didn’t seem to be a matter of pride for him as much as genuine surprise.

“Well, have you not heard of this land?” Marge asked with a patient smile, and Gwaine gave a shrug and a satisfied smile.

“Fair enough.”

“We heard she used to live here,” Merlin interjected.  Marge nodded and listened as she leaned over somewhat and took a very calm sip from her spoon.  “That’s how we ended up here. Do you know anything about that?”

Before she answered, a servant came out to refill the wine.  She sat back and allowed it, arranging her forks and knives and straightening the tablecloth while she considered.  “She did indeed.”  It came as a relief to Merlin that Marge neither lied nor was she ignorant about it.  “She was one of my husband’s many wives.”

“Many wives?” asked Gwaine, hitting Merlin’s thigh with the back of his hand.  “Sounds like he’s living a dream.”

Lady Marge raised an eyebrow and said, “Please see to it that your knight minds his manners, Lord Merlin.”

“Oh, of course,” Merlin said, perhaps a little too eager to claim the authority of the title only moments before he was struggling to maintain.  Doing his best impression of Arthur, he grinned and looked over at Gwaine: “You’ll be a moving target for a week if you don’t mind yourself.”  Gwaine shrugged back at Merlin and hung his head in shame, though he was laughing behind his hair and if his stupid smirk hadn’t given him away, his shaking shoulders sure did.

Lady Marge watched them with chagrin.

“My husband’s wives have all strangely disappeared, save for the witch,” she went on, folding her soup with her spoon again as she talked.  “She left him here with the castle, disappeared with her daughter and became embittered when he remarried.  She hunts men, some say for revenge.”  She took a sip of the soup from her spoon.  Merlin wondered in the silence if the statement was perhaps a request for help of some sort?   “If this witch the same one who cursed your king, then it’s a wonder she left him behind.”

“Yes, but why have his wives disappeared?” he pressed.

Marge gave a weak smile and a shrug. “Who knows?”  Placing her spoon in the bowl, she rose to her feet; Merlin and Gwaine both followed suit, but she gestured for them to remain seated.  “I’m weary and wish to retire.  The main course will be out soon. We shall talk more over breakfast.”

With a nod, Merlin lowered himself back into his seat.  “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Marge,” he said as she curtsied, and before they knew it, they were alone again.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think our situation could be worse,” Gwaine said as he took a bit bite of vegetables in front of him.

Merlin shook his head, poking at his salad still.  “The story with her husband doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Me either,” said Gwaine, though he didn’t relax his eating.  The servants came in and took away their dishes to bring out: steaks, thick and juicy and glistening with blood; steamed green beans and cauliflower, still crisp and moist; soft, doughy dumplings; and thick, dark, creamy gravy drizzled over all of the plate.  Merlin’s mouth watered and his stomach roared with want of it.

“Why did you tell her I’m a lord?” he asked, grabbing his fork and knife to dig in.

“Feels good to be sitting at the table, doesn’t it?” Gwaine asked, forking a mouthful of steak into his mouth.  He continued speaking as he chewed: “She can afford to feed us, no reason she shouldn’t just do it instead of making you work for it.”

A grin splayed across Merlin’s face.  That was actually somewhat kind of Gwaine, not that he didn’t often show Merlin his loyalty; whenever Merlin needed someone, either Gwaine or Gwen were the first to present themselves.  “Thanks,” he said, and he took a gulp of the wine meant for a lord.  It was stronger than the ale at the Rising Sun, and it felt good after their long journey so far.  “Arthur wouldn’t have done that.  He’d sooner have me on the floor scrubbing his boots than let me sit with him.”  He meant it as a joke, even gave his usual sassy smirk as he raised his glass as if in toast, but Gwaine shook his head.

“Arthur’s a good man,” he said, the joy of the meal and the thrill of the lie deflating, leaving his shoulders low and his hands limp over the table.  He looked over to Merlin, his tongue picking the food out of his back teeth.  Something about it made Merlin nervous -- ache, even.  Maybe it was the thought of their king back home, cursed with no one but Merlin and Gwaine able to find out how to break it.  Or maybe it was the look in Gwaine’s eyes, like he wanted to tell Merlin something important and was looking for the way how.

“A prat,” Merlin said.  He directed his own attention back to his plate, breaking a piece of cauliflower in half with his fork so he could swirl it around in the gravy.  “But a good man, sure.”

A silence hung between them.  Gwaine was still leaned forward over the table with a fork and knife in each hand, head turned to watch Merlin.  Meanwhile, Merlin occupied himself with eating, determinedly keeping his eyes on the plate. 

There was a moment in this, and he wasn’t sure what it meant.  It went beyond Merlin’s affections for their king and the fact that now and again, he could be seen just staring at him.  There seemed to be some kind of insinuation, an accusation even and it made Merlin’s cheeks and ears pinken -- but he brushed it off as just being paranoid.

Gwaine flipped his hair out of his eyes and turned back to cutting his steak once it was clear Merlin wouldn’t look back, much to Merlin’s relief. 

“I’ve said it before, Merlin, Arthur’s lucky to have you.”  Gwaine leaned over and bumped his shoulder against Merlin’s.  “We’re all lucky to have you on our side.  It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merlin muttered listlessly.  “All I do is polish armor and carry his stupid swords.”  They fell silent as the servant with the wine came back to refill what Merlin had unknowingly emptied. 

Servants!  Right!  Their loyalty, their eyes.

“Oi, you,” he said at the servant’s back as they retreated.  “Come back, talk to us!”

Gwaine dropped his silverware and turned to watch the exchange, his elbow draped over the back of the chair.

“No offense, sir, but I only respond to the Lady,” he said in what Merlin would have considered to snide tone.  He pulled back in mock offense.

“Watch your tongue, servant, you’re speaking to a lord!” Gwaine snapped, though he was laughing while he said it.

“The Lady knows you are no lord,” he hissed, clutching the basin of wine; his hands shook, possibly from fear of confronting a knight.  “She bade us to serve you dinner and see you to bed with no trouble.  You’ve no right to bark commands at us!”

Merlin put his hands up in defeat.  “You got us, we’re sorry.  We just wanted to ask a few questions, alright?  About Bluebeard.”

The servant hovered wearily, his body pointed away from Merlin ready to run the moment either of them made a move.  “What about him?” he asked as he spun somewhat toward him.

“Is Lady Marge safe here?”

The servant’s eyes widened; he glanced from Merlin to the entrance and to Gwaine before looking back at Merlin.  He took a step close and spoke in a hushed whisper, “I don’t think so.”

As he said it, one of the female servants standing watch over the meal inched over holding a folded towel at her stomach.  The other servant went on.

“All his wives disappear.”  His face grew solemn and he looked to the female servant who was still moving toward him.  He waved for her to come closer.  “Why do you ask?  Are you here to help?”

“I think so, yeah,” Merlin answered.

“Tell ‘em what you saw,” he said to the girl.  When she stepped closer, Merlin could see she was as shy to talk about it as the first servant.  Fear.  They were afraid, but they seemed to be very faithful.

He couldn’t imagine living trapped as they were without knowing that if worse came to worst he a way of protecting himself; the secret of his magic was like a blanket of safety wrapped around him.  His service to Arthur was actually a net.

“When the Lord gave her the keys to the castle, he whispered something to her.  Heard it, I did...”  She moved the towel from her arm to clutch it in her hands.  “He said to her, he says, ‘You can go anywhere in the castle.  These keys’ll let you anywhere you want to go.  But don’t use this one.’”  She pointed at Merlin with the towel and narrowed her eyes in imitation.  “Held one up that was bone white.  Says it leads to the cellars.  Don’t like it, m’lord, not one bit.”

Turns out Lady Marge had brought several of her servants to the castle with her; Bluebeard had none.  They were a part of her dowry, along with a hefty sum of gold that rivaled the gold of his past wives.  He used his wealth to throw parties, and people came in from all over to see him, but no one liked him for his disgusting beard that some say he colored and others say he was cursed with.

Well if the hag was one of his past wives, Merlin didn’t think a curse seemed all that unlikely.

After a few more refills of wine and half a cake later, Gwaine and Merlin were ready to forget their troubles for the night.  What could they do, anyhow?  In the morning, they would ask her exactly what they could do to help maybe, but in the meantime there was nothing but candlelight and flighty servants.

They had arrived at early sunset, washed and allowed themselves guided to the dining hall while the windows were still golden with the fall of the day – but now, as they made their way back to their quarters, the halls were darker and craggier than they seemed in the light, especially so against the harsh light of the few torches left burning.  The lightness of the wine made it fun, though, like a challenge.

Gwaine stepped round every corner holding his torch extended like a sword, lashing out at whatever fowl prey was hiding there.  The more Merlin giggled and grinned at Gwaine’s antics, the more ridiculous they got: At one point, Gwaine acted as though he himself was actually the attacker, and he fended his own arm off with conviction. A sweaty brow and a bloody upper arm later, Merlin was helping him up off the floor in unstoppable hysterics.

This was what had felt good at Rapunzel’s tower: The lightness.  Gwaine had a way about him, even when he was serious, that made everything else seem bearable.  It had been that way since the very beginning.  Their first conversation had been by way of false expectations and funny but satisfying results.  It was that fight in the bar, then the tournament, and then his help aiding Merlin through the Perilous Lands… Gwaine was never anything short of a good companion.

As Merlin pulled him up, their hands holding tight to each other’s forearms, Gwaine pulled Merlin into a hug, clapping him hard on the back.  “It’s good to be with you, Merlin,” he said as he pulled back, their hands still clasped with his other hand slid back to rest on Merlin’s upper arm.  “I may not actually be much help, but we’ll figure this out, yeah?  And you’ll have me.”  A pat.  He pulled away and picked his still-burning torch up off the stone floor.

“Thanks,” Merlin said, a little taken aback by the sudden seriousness.  Gwaine flipped his hair out of his eyes as he stood back up.  “Really, Gwaine,” he added.  “You do make it easier.”

Gwaine waved the torch between them and Merlin laughed and stepped back.

“Not always,” he teased.  “But you do.  _Sometimes_.”  Gwaine drew a hand to his chest, feigning offense.  “Alright, most of the time.  _Sometimes_ you make it easier _most of the time_.”

“You listen here, Merli-“

_A blood-curdling scream pierced the corridors._

The both of them stilled, looking back to where they came from but the scream was punctuated with perfect silence, like a whole world frozen.  A sudden thickness weighed down Merlin’s limbs and he looked to Gwaine for only a moment before they started running in what sounded like the direction it came from.  When they got back to the dining hall, Merlin stopped to use his magic and track the path ahead, but he was interrupted when the servant they’d question earlier came barging in after them.

“Lord Merlin!  Lord Merlin!” he shouted, practically falling over himself to catch up with him.  “The cellar, Lady Marge is in the cellar!”

“Which way?” Gwaine asked, seizing the young man’s arm.

He pointed, mouth agape, and barely manage to get out, “All the way down that way, right at the end—“

But before he even finished, Merlin and Gwaine were already through the door and halfway down the corridor, racing for the end when they heard another scream.  By the time they got to the bottom of the stairwell, Gwaine had charged far ahead of Merlin, torch held high overhead and it became immediately clear where they had to get.  The smell of rot hit them, pungent and sweet and stomach-turning, and it only got stronger as they went on, Merlin now covering his mouth while Gwaine pressed forward apparently unfazed.

All the way down at the end was Lady Marge on her knees, hunched in over herself with hands up over her head, whimpering as she rocked back and forth.  Gwaine pushed forward into the room but stopped dead at the doorway standing in front of front.  Inside were at least ten different bodies of mangled women, some seemingly fresh, others dead long enough to have been here as long as Gwaine had been alive.  “ _That’s_ not what I expected,” he said, but his tone was not laughing.  Merlin knelt next to Marge and put a hand on her shoulder.  “Merlin, you get her out of here, don’t-”

“Wait, the keys!” Marge said, springing forward on her hands and knees, but her hand reeled back.  Gwaine held the torch up.  The light expanded throughout the room, revealing not only the extent to which some of the bodies had been mangled, but also that Marge was reaching for the keys that sat in a swelling puddle of blood.  Gwaine bent over to pick them out, and the sound of the metal scratching against the stone floors as he did so was dampened by the thickness of the blood that was still wet. 

It was safe to say Merlin wouldn’t be drinking any more tonight.

As Merlin put a hand under her arm to help her up, she reached for the keys from Gwaine who held them out to her with only a touch of uncertainty.  “Shut the door,” she snapped, much of the dignity of the woman from the dinner table disappeared though she seemed to be picked up now by her pride.  Clutching the keys to her chest, she stepped away from Merlin and began returning to the stairwell.  Merlin and Gwaine followed. 

“I must leave tonight,” she said as she hurried up the stairs.  Her two servants were waiting for her at the top, their faces as bone white as the key.  “Wash these,” she said as she handed them off to the girl, then to the boy, “Pack essentials for all of us.  We are leaving.”

Gwaine and Merlin stopped right behind her, and she turned to look at them, and though she looked tired as the dead, she gave them both a grateful smile.  “I’m afraid I cannot extend my hospitality any longer,” she said with a gracious nod.  “Lord Merlin, you have been a very nice guest, but-“

Merlin waved a hand.  “We’ll help you get out,” he said in a rushed voice, done with the pleasantries.  She straightened her back and looked at him with a grim expression as if considering.  “We’ll get you where you need to go.” 

Gwaine nodded from behind Merlin. 

“Very well,” she said curtly.  “I will be ready to leave within an hour.  I will not be staying another night.”

When they all agreed to get moving, the girl servant returned with the keys at a heavy run, her eyes wide and her breathing fast. “It won’t wash off, my lady!” she said, holding the keys out.  “It won’t wash!”

Merlin took the keys from her and flipped to the one that was once bone what; it was a solid crimson now, and he looked up to Lady Marge with a solemn expression.  “It’s probably enchanted,” he said frankly.  “He probably already knows.”

“Lord Merlin!” the boy servant came out, running from the other side of the hall.  Merlin and Gwaine both turned their heads to him.  “The Lord is back, he’s drunk, he’s gonna find out!” he rushed out.  Merlin let a breath out through his nose, put a hand on the servant’s shoulder.  This wasn’t good.  He didn’t know what kind of man this was, that a witch would run from him. 

“Alright.  We can figure this out.  What should we expect?” he asked.

“ _Where is my wife!_ ”

The voice boomed from down the hallway.  The five of them stood guilty as anybody over the stairwell to the cellar still when he approached.  He was bigger than the portrait showed him, much older and thicker and that was saying quite a lot. 

“You little wretch!” he called out, totally ignoring anyone but the woman he married.  He came at them with a dagger in hand.  Gwaine drew his sword and stepped in front of her. 

“I’m afraid I can’t allow this, mate,” he said with a grin, flicking a glance down at the dagger in Bluebeard’s hand.  Merlin stepped up behind him, and the two servants cowered in the back.

Bluebeard didn’t hesitate to come at Gwaine instead.  He let out a loud growl  and lunged after him, and Gwaine stepped easily out of the path of the dagger.  He used the hilt of the sword to smack the dagger from Bluebeard’s hand.

Though it managed to do so, Blueneard used the close proximity to take hold of Gwaine’s sword hand and twist it backwards, making him drop it.  Merlin turned to Lady Marge and pushed her down the opposite direction down the hall.  “Go!” he yelled, and she and the servants ran.

When Merlin looked back, Gwaine had gotten free of Bluebeard’s grip and began running.  He grabbed Merlin by the wrist and dragged him down the cellar stairs, luring Bluebeard away from the Lady and her servants.

They ran past the door with the bloodied corpses deep into the darker hallway.  When they rounded a corner, it got very dark very fast.  It occurred to Merlin now that they were in underground tunnels.

They ran in the total darkness for a while with no light to guide them.

After a while of running, they practically collapsed on top of each other with exhaustion, both of their chests heaving in need for fresh air they weren’t going to get from the damp darkness of the caves they had entered.  For fear of losing each other, they clutched their arms together and leaned into one another for support.  As Merlin let out a long breath that was meant to even his breathing, he felt a sharpness in his lungs that was specific to over-exhaustion.  Unsatisfied by the sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned into Gwaine; Gwaine leaned back.  Whether his eyes were open or closed, the part of the cave they were in had it so that the only difference it made was whether or not the coolness air was on them.  In fact, it was the only indicator he had that they were open at all.

“That could have gone – worse,” Gwaine said as his breathing evened, though he didn’t lean away from Merlin.  His voice was a comfort and even in their rut, Merlin couldn’t help but grin.

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “Much worse.”

“Now what?  We’re lost, in a cave, no way out...”  He laughed openly.  Merlin hit his leg with the back of his hand.  “Knowing my luck, I think we’re doing pretty well.”

There was something they could do, Merlin thought.  He could use his magic, light a path... Though honestly, they couldn’t get far with him looking at the path ahead because the rocks all looked the same to him like that, and every which way seemed both the wrong and the right.

“He’s going to find us,” Merlin said, taking a few steps along the wall, his fingers grazing the rock.  He let out another sigh; the sharp digging of his lungs was duller now. 

“The phrase _sitting ducks_ comes to mind, I think.”  Gwaine was walking alongside Merlin, their arms still linked.  “Listen, Merlin...”

“ _Shh!_ ”  Merlin put his hand flat on the wall, trying to see into the stone to see if Bluebeard was close.  “Hear that?  He’s in here somewhere.  We gotta find--”

Merlin went silent and clapped a hand over Gwaine’s upper arm for attention as a torch light outlined an arch in the cave, making it glisten in pink and orange and blue.  They pressed themselves flush against the stone and stood as still as the walls while Merlin whispered an incantation quietly enough that Gwaine couldn’t hear the words, but they all three heard the loud _clack!_ of stone against stone a ways away. 

As the light was lured away, it stretched into the arch until the very last moment. Merlin watched in the lingering glow as Gwaine’s face went from visible, to outlined, to gone.  Despite their interlinked arms, they were isolated once again.  They both sighed in relief and Merlin rested his head back against the wall.  “We’re gonna die,” he said simply.  “Helping her was a bad idea.  Even if we get out, Arthur’s still stuck under that spell.  And what do we have for it?  Nothing.”

A set of fingers found their way onto the arm Gwaine had linked in his.

“We’ll pull through,” he said, rather unconvincingly.  They were swordless now and trapped.  “In case we don’t, though.”

Merlin picked his head up and he would have turned it to look at Gwaine, were there light to see.  That was a sort of defeated language, not the way Gwaine usually spoke.  When he continued, his voice was as certain as the promise of pulling through:

“Merlin, what you’re doing for Arthur is amazingly loyal.”

“And you know I’d do it for you,” Merlin cut in, though Gwaine pressed on unfazed, save for what felt like a shift in weight. 

“Gwaine?”

The shift in weight didn’t turn out to be uncertainty, but an actual intention.  Gwaine had moved so that he was standing in front of Merlin.  He brought a hand up to touch the side of Merlin’s face. 

Merlin wished he could see what he was doing, right up until he felt the warm, damp touch of lips against the top of his mouth, having missed by just a little in the dark.  Merlin stilled, and there was a second attempt, this time clear on his mouth while Gwaine’s thumb rubbed idly against his cheek.

Merlin pressed back against the wall of the cave and raised a hand to press his fingers against the center of Gwaine’s chest, pushing just enough to apply the pressure needed to tell Gwaine _no._

Gwaine stepped back. 

“What was that?” Merlin hissed in a harsh whisper.  “Was that a kiss?  Tell me you didn’t just kiss me, Gwaine.”

A breath of air, probably a laugh, but Merlin had a feeling Gwaine wasn’t grinning as usual.  “Can you blame me?” he asked, letting his hand fall from Merlin’s face.

Merlin sighed and let his head fall a little.  “Can we talk about this later?” he asked, reaching out so that they could re-link their arms. 

“No time like the present,” Gwaine answered, and the bounce did seem to be back in his voice, which relieved Merlin.

“Okay, except that in the present, a giant man with raging blue facial hair is hunting us down with the only light source in the cave, so I think we should maybe focus on getting out of here first.”  He aimed to pat Gwaine on the shoulder; luck would have it that he succeeded.  “Just a thought.”

“Sure, you’re the boss.” 

This was going to be hard.  Merlin forced himself to push the kiss back in his mind so he could focus on a solution, though it was hard to with the lingering tingle of warmth over his mouth not only from the gentle but itchy kiss (Gwaine really needed to shave) but also from the warm breath that Gwaine had let out as he neared.  Merlin brought a hand to his mouth as he brought his focus back to Bluebeard and closed his eyes.

“If we just run away, he’ll kill his wife,” he whispered through his hand.  “But if we stay, if we fail -- what happens to Arthur?”  Merlin felt Gwaine shrug.

“Don’t think we have much of a choice, do we?  The fairy said to help her, didn’t he?”

Heaving a huge sigh, Merlin leaned his head back and groaned.  “He’s got a crossbow, Gwaine,” he said irritably.  “And a sword-”

“ _My_ sword, technically-”

“And a torch.  That gives him the distinct advantage.” 

There were a couple options available to them.  They could try and grope their way along the walls, hope for the best.  They could try and face him head on, let him find them.  They could wait it out and rest until Bluebeard spent long enough looking for them that he exhausted himself...

As Merlin considered it, the flickering in the arch nearest them began to glow again, and half the room was illuminated.  Merlin threw his head back to look over his shoulder -- _could they run?_ \-- but their little nook in the rocks seemed to be just that: A nook.  Ahead of them was Bluebeard approaching, and though they couldn’t see him from where they stood, there was nowhere behind them to retreat into anyway. 

Merlin released Gwaine’s arm and took one step back instinctively, the way he usually did when it was Arthur he traveled with.  His foot slipped over a rock as he did so, and in an attempt to stay quiet, he lost his balance entirely and fell back half sprawled on the ground, half against the wall.

It was less than a moment before Bluebeard stepped in, crossbow aimed steady at Gwaine’s chest.  “Found ya,” he said, his eyes vivid with excitement in the flickering light of the torch.

_“Gwaine!”_

The crossbow fired.

Merlin would have just deflected the arrow, sent it flying at the wall behind him, but he didn’t have the time to think about it.  Instead, it stopped stock still hovered just in front of Gwaine’s heart, the top pressing gently against his tunic while Merlin laid behind him on the ground, hand outstretched.  As his hand fell, the arrow clattered onto the floor.  The effort of the magic made his heart pound.  It felt like it had barely been done in time, and the shock of almost losing Gwaine made his joins shake.

He pushed himself up as Bluebeard, unhalted by his thwarted shot, threw the crossbow to the ground and drew his sword, crying out as he lunged at Gwaine.  Standing now, Merlin pushed out with both hands; what would knock most men to the ground only sent Bluebeard stumbling back a few steps, mildly stunned.  Either his magic was weaker here, which was a possibility, or Bluebeard was a truly terrifying man.  Perhaps both.

Merlin decided not to look at Gwaine.  Not until this was finished.  The time for talk of revelations should come later, he already said that, and he had to stick to his own word.  If he started getting nervous now, then they might not get their chance.  But either way, it was out there now and that opened a world of possibilities.

With a flash of golden eyes, the sword was wrenched from Bluebeard’s hand and flew into Gwaine’s.  What else?  How else could he help?  He looked around fast, looking for something, anything, he could use against him.

“A witch?” Bluebeard said with a raspy _ha!_ He held the torch out and pointed it at both and Merlin and Gwaine.  “Figures.  Only a _witch_ would think they could beat me.”  His laughter rolled and he took a step back so that he stood in the arch, blocking any kind of exit Merlin and Gwaine might have thought they could shoot for. 

“You have _two_ options!” Merlin said, stepping toward Bluebeard with as much conviction as he could muster.  He could see Gwaine move to stand beside him, the sword outstretched.  It felt good, having someone on his side.  It gave him power.

“Yeah?  What are they?”

“You can either leave the castle and leave your wife, or you can stay and fight.”  Feeling empowered by Gwaine’s presence next to him, he held his hand out flat and called on a ball of fire big enough to begin to rival the torch.  “I’d advise you against the latter.”

 

Gwaine laughed beside him.

 

The power that rushed through Merlin was exhilarating.  They could do this, he thought.  He smirked at Bluebeard and glanced over at Gwaine who was looking at him with _respect_.  Respect!  It was the same look Arthur gave him after a hard quest or job they pulled through together, and it gave him the same courage and self-satisfaction as it did then.

 

Bluebeard was not nearly so touched.  With a big yell that echoed against the stone everything, he lunged at Merlin with the torch, but Gwaine jumped in front of him with the sword, intercepting it.  Bluebeard kicked him down.  Gwaine caught himself with his back on the wall while Merlin threw his flame at Bluebeard’s face -- he had to admit, partly just to see that irritating blue on his face get scorched.  But Bluebeard was hardly swayed by it, and managed to strike Merlin’s leg with the torch.

Merlin cried out and stumbled back while Bluebeard laughed at him, which was the perfect in that Gwaine needed.  He lunged in with the sword and managed to slice the bulging bicep open.

The fight didn’t last much longer.  It seemed like Bluebeard would prevail for a few more solid moments -- he knocked Gwaine back as he fought to take Merlin out first, and the best Merlin could do was push him back with only what seemed like a small amount of force, but at least he had knocked the torch from his hand.  It turned though when they managed to get Bluebeard against the wall.

Merlin pushed his head back will all the force he could muster into one spell, and in that moment same motion with Bluebeard stunned against the wall, Gwaine pinned him there, the tip of the blade pressing into his throat enough to draw blood from underneath the blue stubble. 

“Will you leave?” Merlin asked, hunched over and winded, his weight pushed over onto the leg that wasn’t burned.  “Or will you fight?”

Bluebeard spit in Gwaine’s face.

Gwaine sank the sword into his throat.

Silence befell them once more as his massive body fell to the ground.  Limping, Merlin walked over to the fallen torch and lifted it, the shame of the revelation discouraging him from looking at or talking to Gwaine.  He could hear him, though, he pushed the sword in deeper, pulled it back out, cleaned it on something.  Probably on Bluebeard.  Licking his lips, he let out a sigh and made himself face Gwaine, who had blood on him from the battle.

“Here,” he said

“Thanks,” said Gwaine, taking the torch as Merlin offered it to him.  “One hell of a trick you pulled there...  The fireball, now that was a nice touch.”

“I’m sorry, Gwaine, I...”  I, what?  Merlin wasn’t sure what he meant to say.  “I couldn’t tell you, I-- I wanted to, but-- I mean, who wants to talk about that, it’s not really the kind of thing that--”

Gwaine quieted him by reaching out and touching his shoulder.  “Merlin, it’s fine,” he said as he walked past him.  “Only an idiot wouldn’t have noticed by now.  Let’s just get back to the castle.”

Easier said than done.  The caves were more of a labyrinth than they realized.  Staying put may have been the smartest move they made, but only if they could have remembered how they _got_ to that spot.  Perhaps it was because they did it without the light that they got lost -- the senses they were trying to rely on to get back were not the same they used to get there in the first place.  Now they had the same problem Merlin did earlier when he tried to use his magic and see ahead.

And then there was the fact that they had been slowed considerably by Merlin and his burned leg.  The rush of the fight and the shame of the reveal had distracted him enough that he didn’t quite notice it before, but the prolonged walking had him using the wall to support himself.  He was ashamed to have to say it, but he let out a quiet _Gwaine, we need to stop_ , hence their resting place in another more open area of the cave. 

There was a crag sticking out of the wall that Merlin could sit on, while Gwaine sat on the floor beside him, looking round.

“Definitely don’t recognize this room, either,” he said with the torch raised.  “Though I gotta say, I’m liking the looks of it.” 

Merlin had to admit that he did too.  It reminded him of the Crystal Cave when he had been there the once, all jagged and crystallized, only the gems here weren’t so _blue_ as they were there.  Here was dark purple, so that the twitchy light of torch made the walls look like flickering, endless stars.  It was beautiful.

“Could be better,” Merlin said petulantly.  “The crystals could be in our pockets.”

“That _would_ be better,” Gwaine agreed, passing the light to Merlin.  He stood up and walked to the walls, and Merlin watched his back; he could see Gwaine’s profile, outlined in gold by the firelight, strong and shaggy both at once and quite noble, despite Gwaine’s best attempts to pretend otherwise.  The kiss hadn’t been so bad, had it?  Gwaine was a good man and a good friend... And, well, he was a man, but it wasn’t too uncommon for some of the knights to bed each other on long trips.  And... This certainly qualified as a long trip, did it not?

Nevermind that it was Arthur Merlin wanted, and nevermind that Arthur was the reason they were even here.  Thinking on it made his chest ache as it did after they’d been running for too long.

He sighed and looked down at his leg.  It throbbed hot, and the torchlight alone even from a distance only served to make it worse.  It wasn’t good.  When they got in the sunlight, though, back in the forest, Merlin could find what he needed to heal it.

“Here.”  Merlin looked up.  Gwaine was holding a hand outstretched with some of the gems from the cave in it.  “For your pockets.  Some of them are loose.”  Merlin held his hand out and Gwaine dropped some of the deep purple gemstones in it. 

“Well get yourself some too,” he said with a short nod as he rattled them in his palm, wondering what they were worth.  “They look like amethysts.  Morgana liked them...”  Morgana.  On that first night, instinct had brought him to the quarters where she used to live.  He had thought in the moment she was undeniably the culprit behind whatever was about to happen.  While it was harder to pin it on her now with however much information they had, he didn’t entirely rule it out.

“ _Morgana_ ,” Gwaine repeated as he set to looking for more loose gems.  “That’s a name people avoid these days.  It’s a shame that pretty face got so dark...”

“Mm.”  Leaning his weight back against the wall, Merlin watched Gwaine with idle interest.  “Speaking of pretty faces...”

Gwaine turned back to look at Merlin.  “Yours or someone else’s?” Merlin’s cheeks turned pink and he looked away bashfully, poking at the craggy rock he sat on as he went on,

“Why did you kiss me?  Was it a rush of the moment thing?  Because if it was, I can just forget it, I--”

“Nah, that wasn’t it.”  Merlin picked up a piece of stone that came loose in his fingers and looked at it in the light.  “Merlin, you’re the first real friend I ever had.  You know that, don’t ya?”  He continued inspecting it even as Gwaine approached, stood closer.  “Maybe it was the rush a little, fear of death turns a guy on, you know?  But it’s hard, watching you pine over Arthur--”

“I don’t _pine_ over Arthur--”

“Watching you _pine_ over Arthur when I know you could be happy with someone else.”

“Someone like you?”  Merlin dropped the pebble and looked up at him.  Maybe it came out a little more facetious than he meant it to, but he couldn’t take it back. 

“Maybe,” was all Gwaine answered with a shrug.  A fresh heat went all the way to the tips of Merlin’s ears as a feeling of sheepishness washed over him.  “And then all there’s all this _true love’s kiss_ and I keep thinking, _I’m losing my shot_.  So I gave it a go.”  Grinning, he leaned over and pat Merlin’s upper arm.  “What about you and your magic back there?  Are we allowed to talk about that yet?”

If Merlin wasn’t beginning to feel small yet, which he was, then now was certainly the time to start.  He rose his shoulders up and looked into the flame of the torch, shrugging.  “I don’t know.  What do you wanna talk about?”

“You have magic, then.  Yeah?  We can start there.”

“Born with it,” Merlin answered.  Gwaine nodded.

“So, what else can you do?” he asked, to which Merlin answered by considering the question carefully.  _Loads_ was the simple answer.  Maybe Gwaine’s curiosity made him bold, though.  Maybe it made him want to show off.  Holding out his hand, he let his eyes shine gold and a familiar blue orb hovered over his palm.

“I’ve used this to help Arthur,” he said, letting it rise and fill the room with light.  Gwaine watched it with thinly veiled fascination.  “Back when we first met.  He doesn’t know it was me.”

“Doesn’t he?”  Gwaine took the torch from Merlin.  “Does anyone know?”

“Gaius,” Merlin supplied with a shrug.  He leaned back a little and supported his weight on his hands.  “Lancelot used to...”  Uther did, in death.  Now and again, a few other people found out, but no one Gwaine knew, and no one else worth mentioning.  Mordred’s name, certainly, was not going to be brought into this.  “Not really, though.  It’s not really something you brag about. Just you now.”

“Why don’t you tell Arthur?” 

That was a question Merlin knew was coming.  It always did.  “You kidding?” he laughed out, much louder than the humor of the question actually warranted.  “That prat doesn’t even know how to handle it when his _breakfast_ is different.  Imagine _that_ change in perspective.”  With a sigh, he pushed himself up so he was standing again.  “Anyway, it won’t make a difference if we’re stuck in this cave.”

Gwaine took Merlin’s arm and supported him as they walked, though the conversation weakened after that.  They made a few snide comments to each other (“you _definitely_ pine” and “at least I don’t flirt with everything that moves”), kept the mood light, but even under Merlin’s blue orb and in the haze of the slowly fading torch, they only made a very slow progression through the channels of the cave. 

With Merlin’s leg only feeling worse, they had to stop several times.  And being that they went down there in the nighttime, Merlin wondered if it would soon be morning, or if morning had already passed.

An answer to the question came soon enough.  They began to hear a _clink._ _clink. clink._ of hard metal being driven into the surface of the stone and, deciding they were too lost not to take advice, they followed the sound. 

“Miners,” Gwaine had said knowingly.  Apparently he had once picked up an odd job doing mining, and the sound was “unforgettable.” 

They called out as they got nearer.  Merlin pulled back his orb and Gwaine frowned at the low-burning torch they were forced to deal with from that.  “The magic is better,” he whispered, and Merlin couldn’t help but grin as they called out again, unable to find the source of the noise.

Though the source did call back.  It was low and raspy, and it demanded to know, “Who’s there?”

“We’re lost!” Merlin called out, loosening his arm around Gwaine’s neck so he could stand and hobble on his own.  “Can you help?”

They couldn’t make out the response exactly -- it was just a series of mumbles -- but within moment, a light from an oil lamp came toward them in the hands of a very little man.  “How the hell did you get down here?” he asked, then immediately followed it up with, “Nevermind, I don’t care, just follow me.” 

It didn’t take long for the angry little dwarf to take them from the caves (Gwaine whispered stubbornly to Merlin that they would have found the entrance soon enough) but the mouth of the cave where they exited was nowhere near the castle they entered from.  The sun was still rising, which was good, Merlin thought.  It meant they hadn’t taken as long as he feared.

“There, yer out.”

Merlin took his time looking; they couldn’t even see the castle they entered from.  “Thank you for your help, but-”

“No _thank you_ follow by a _but_ seems like thanks to me,” he dwarf said, swinging his pickaxe over his shoulder to level his eyes up at Merlin’s.

“Where’s the castle?” Merlin asked.  “We entered through the castle, and-”

“It’s on the other side of the mountain,” the dwarf said.  He looked Merlin over, his eyes going from his dirty face to his torn trousers and burned leg, then back up into his eyes.  As if Merlin was personally forcing him to do something, the dwarf let out a heavy sigh.  Merlin looked to Gwaine who shrugged, and they both looked back to the dwarf who threw up his hands in exasperation.  “You really were lost, weren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, we-”

“Grumpy, who’re you talking to?”  The voice was cheerful, and from round the bend of the forest waddled another little man, this one giving Merlin and Gwaine a grin that split his face from ear to ear. 

“A couple of idiots come from Bluebeard’s castle!”

“I’m Happy,” the new Dwarf said, extending his arm to Merlin.  “Who’re you?”

“Uhhh.”  Merlin took the offered hand, meanwhile affording Gwaine a quick glance just in time to see him stifle a laugh.  Merlin couldn’t push down the grin it gave him.  “I’m Merlin.  That’s Sir Gwain.”

“Merlin, you’re injured!” Happy yelled, pulling back to point at the burn on his leg.  He then gave Merlin a semi-scolding look and put his hands on his hips.  “We better get you to see Doc.”  The dwarf turned and started walking back up toward the forest. 

“Alright, take me to ‘im,” Merlin said as he followed, though he did glance back at the cave.  Where else would he go if he had a burn, except to see the physician?  He wanted his bag back, but it was weird how everything kept lining up in their favor.  The mermaids led them to Rapunzel who sent them to the castle and now they’re landed here, Bluebeard dead, Lady Marge liberated, and Rapunzel on the ground.  Maybe they didn’t have to go back to the castle, and maybe he was better off without the weight of the book on his shoulder.  He looked over to Gwaine, who was taking Merlin’s arm to throw it back up over his shoulders as they walked.  “Maybe we’re heading in the right direction,” Merlin said with a bit more confidence than he thought he could feel at this point.

“You think so?” Gwaine asked distantly, a hand around Merlin’s waist to hold him steady.  “How’s your leg feeling?”

“Awful.  We need to clean it out.  But let’s keep moving for now, see if their physician can help me first.”

Luckily the walk Happy led them on was short.  Gwaine hauled Merlin onto a cart full of gems of all colors, and was carried off by pony half the size of any horse Merlin had ever seen.  Gwaine walked alongside the cart, a hand on the edge, and they chatted with Happy along the way.  He and six of his brothers -- Grumpy, of course, along with Dopey, Sneezey, Bashful, Sleepy and Doc -- were miners.  They went in under the mountain for the gems, and they traded them for fine foods and liquors.  Doc was the smartest of them, Happy explained.  That’s why he took care of them all.  A smart mind shouldn’t be a hard worker, in case he got hit in the head.  Happy seemed to laugh a while he gave himself a funny image.

It was deep in the forest that Happy led them, to a small home with open windows, hardly the kind of home you would expect from people who sold gemstones for a living.  Merlin wondered if they were even worth as much back here. 

When they got there, Gwaine hailed Merlin back out of the cart and carried him like a maiden into the house.  Merlin complained about it, but Gwaine’s counter-argument was rather compelling: He gave Merlin his most charming classic smirk and winked at him.  Defeated, Merlin allowed it up until Gwaine placed him on one of the seven beds lining the walls.  He sat up in it, his injured leg up on the bed while his good leg hung over the edge, holding him up.

Doc had set to washing it just the way Gaius would have.  “It’s a pretty bad burn,” he told Merlin, “but it’ll heal.”  Which was pretty much what Merlin thought of it -- so long as it didn’t get infected it. 

“You haven’t got anything to eat, have ya?” Gwaine asked from across the cabin, poking around in what seemed to be a kitchen filled with piles upon piles of plates, with nothing either fresh or clean.  Merlin’s hand went to his stomach when he realized how long it actually had been since they ate -- they were in the cave all night.  “Bread?  Apples?  Creme brulee?  Lemon tarte?”

Doc sat back on the bed next to Merlin and looked over at Gwaine, shaking his head.  Merlin watched as he adjusted his glasses, felt dissatisfied and pulled them off to wash them, then replaced them with something of a frown on his face.  “We haven’t had much in our kitchen for a while.”

“No?” Merlin asked, a hand on his own thigh just above the freshly-dressed burn.  “Is something wrong?”

Doc sighed as he looked back to Merlin, his chest heaving in an exaggerated up-and-down -- or maybe it just seemed exaggerated because he was such a small man.  “We used to have a young woman living here.  She managed the kitchen and made us our dinners.”

“What happened to her?” Gwaine asked, leaning over the low, grime-covered counter on his elbows.  “Wait, don’t tell me -- is she cursed?”

“A sleeping curse,” said Doc, looking back to Gwaine whose eyes darted to Merlin’s.  They gave each other a small nod before going back to Doc for more.  “It was put over her by her mother, the witch from the other side of the mountain.”

“The same hag who cursed Arthur...” Merlin said, nodding.  “She owned it?  Locked Rapunzel in the tower... and cursed our king.”  He gestured to Doc.  “And your... what was her name?

“Snow White.”

“So she cursed Snow White too.”  Merlin leaned his back against the wall.  “So we’ve been getting further from home but closer to her each place we go.  It’s like she lured us in.”  He looked up at Gwaine.  “Do you think this is a trap?”

“Almost certainly.”  Gwaine answered as he poked around in the cupboards, looking for food to prepare.  “But what choice have we got?  Here we are.”

Doc stood up and moved into the kitchen.  He pulled a few pots off the skillet on the stove and wiped it clean with a dirty rag from his pocket.  “She’s not just a hag, you know.  She’s the queen.  Or, was the queen.”  He grabbed a few eggs from under the counter and handed them to Gwaine with a low “can’t promise they’re good” under his breath.

“Can we see her?” Merlin asked from across the cabin.  “Snow White.  Can we see where she’s resting?”

“You’re not going anywhere on that leg,” said Doc as the door opened and in came two more dwarves, one hiding his face behind the other’s shoulder.  “Merlin, Sir Gwaine -- this is Dopey and Bashful.” 

That wouldn’t be the last introduction, either.  As the day went, more and more of the dwarfs came filing in and out of the cabin, some of them stopping to ask them about their story while others watched them -- save for Grumpy, who ignored them entirely.  Merlin had to admit he found that endearing.  Were he not so frustrated about being in the bed, he might have given him a hard time about it.  Maybe it was because the stubbornness and steadfast irritability reminded him a bit of Arthur on a bad day.  It just meant he would be fun to tease, even if it was at the cost of a full day’s worth of chores to get done in two hours. 

At some point, Merlin had fallen asleep in all the commotion.  He only realized it because Gwaine shook him awake to stick a leg of lamb in his hand and pull him up to his feet; as he did so, the skylight coming in the window was golden and the shadows, all long.  “I got Dopey to tell me where our sleeping princess is,” he whispered as Merlin allowed himself to be hauled.

Merlin slung his arm over Gwaine’s shoulder and hungrily ate the lamb as they went on.  Some of the dwarves were sleeping, while the others were either outside sorting through their haul, or simply resting and watching the sunset as was the case with Bashful. 

“Doc said he’d take us tomorrow, but I assumed you wouldn’t wanna wait.”

“Good call,” Merlin muttered through a mouthful of meat and grogginess.  Doc made a pretty scary mother.  “My leg’s feeling fine, anyway...” He paused to test it out, arm still over Gwaine’s shoulder, and while it throbbed with a dull ache, it was feeling much better than it had earlier.  “I can walk on my own now.”

Gwaine released him and gave Merlin a look that made him feel proud. 

“Hey, boys!”  Merlin and Gwaine turned around at the woman’s voice, brash and loud and somewhat familiar.  It was Rapunzel, addressing Bashful and Dopey at the hill watching the sunset.  “Long time, no see!  Lookin’ good.”

Bashful giggled and covered his face with his hands.

Merlin grinned at that -- it was hard to describe what he liked about her.  She was sort of like a mix between the good parts of Arthur and Gwen.  If they had a daughter, Merlin could easily see her growing up to be like Rapunzel.  Well, apart from the whole ‘locked in a tower’ thing.

Gwaine called her over to them by waving his hand, shouting her name.  She seemed startled to see them but approached them all the same with a bit of a doofy grin on her face.  As she approached, Merlin saw the travel hadn’t been much kinder on her than it was on them; much of her dress was in tatters, and her hands and arms and face were all covered in dirt.  Her hair stuck out somewhat, but in a way that made her look energized instead of deranged -- not like the hag’s wiry hair that Merlin remembered from the first time he saw her. “What are you boys doing here?” she asked, hiking up her skirt to walk up the path straight for them. 

“Turns out there’s an entrance to a cave under the castle,” Merlin said, gesturing toward the mountain.  “Lets out on the other side.”

“Well.  You’re just in time, then!”  She claps Merlin on the back.  “I’m about to wake up my true love.  The boys are gonna wanna be there, wait here.”  And they did. 

Doc came out not long after her telling them that she was washing up, and he brought a walking stick for Merlin.  Though he felt a bit silly using it, it felt rude to turn it down. There were carvings on it in a spiral that ran up and down the length of the shaft, while the head was carved into a claw that held onto a large, almost flawless round amethyst.  A fine dwarven craft, he thought. 

“What does she mean, true love?” Gwaine asked Doc just before he went back inside.

“Snow White!” Doc answered, his white teeth showing in a bit of a grin; he adjusted his glasses, which had skewed in his excitement.  “She’s going to break the sleeping curse.”

While the dwarves all got ready, Merlin wanted to go on ahead and see Snow White before everyone else got there.  The walking stick helped significantly, especially since he didn’t want to have to lean against Gwaine.  Without it, the walk would have taken considerably longer.

They found Snow White in a glass coffin in the middle of a round clearing, surrounded also by hedges in a ring, shoddily maintained but seemingly well-loved.  No serious gardener would have been impressed, but Merlin thought it was sweet.

It was an impressive display, though.  The coffin was clear as crystal, not a single scratch and flake of dust.  Were it not for Gwaine resting his hand atop it as he leaned closer to see her face, they might not be too confident it was even there.

Snow White was a heavier build than other girls, much like Rapunzel.  Gwaine said it was probably because she knew how to cook.  From the way the dwarfs seemed so hopeless without her, Merlin didn’t even think twice before he agreed. Merlin wondered how long Rapunzel had been in the tower, and if she had been here eating Snow White’s cooking too. 

“I’d love her, too,” Gwaine said.  “She could fatten me up, if she likes.”

Love.  That reminded Merlin.  “How do you think Rapunzel’s gonna break it?” he asked, hovering over to eye Snow White’s dark ringlets in her hair.  “True love’s kiss?”  It seemed almost ridiculous.  They were two girls, and if it were that simple, Merlin could have just kissed Arthur before they left and had that be the end of it

“Seems that way,” Gwaine said. 

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” Merlin asked, more out of self-consciousness than judgment.  Gwaine shrugged, so Merlin smacked his boots with the walking stick.  “Answer me, you good-for-nothing,” he teased, and Gwaine threw his hair back in a hearty laugh.

“I don’t, no,” he answered, and Merlin was more relieved than he thought he’d be to hear that.  “I think it’s nice.”  He drummed his fingers on the case.  That was probably rude, but not much of what Gwaine did was very polite.

Merlin wondered if the drumming was loud under the case.  He wondered if Snow White could hear it, or if she was dreaming.  Unlike Arthur, she didn’t look as though she’d stirred -- but then, neither did Gwen when she slept.  What was going through Arthur’s mind, if he was dreaming?  Was Gwen working at the desk comforting to his dreaming, or disturbing to it?  He let out a loud breath and put a hand on the glass casing and looked in at her, watching her breath.  So, what would it look like when true love’s kiss woke her?  What would it feel like?  How soon would they know if it worked?

What would have happened if he had kissed Arthur?

“Do I really pine?” Merlin asked, his voice surprising himself.  He gave a stupid smile as if he had meant the question, had wanted to keep it light.  Gwaine adjusted so his elbow was on the case and he ran his hand through his hair, watching Merlin with a smile that knew something in the corner of it.  Merlin wasn’t actually quite convinced it was even a smile at all.

With a nod, Gwaine told him patiently, “Yeah.  You kind of do.  It’s a bit of a personality trait at this point.  Merlin, the Court Piner.”

Merlin pushed Gwaine’s shoulder and they both gave dry, forced laughs.  “Shut up, Gwaine, I’m not that bad,” he shot back, the anger in it not very angry at all.

When Rapunzel came to the clearing, she had a full procession of dwarves behind her.  She looked much nicer now that she had washed, but she was out of her dress and into a pair of trousers -- probably borrowed from one of the dwarves, as it only went down to her knees -- and a white tunic.  He hair, still somewhat damp, was brushed back and she looked rather like Gwen did in her hunting-adventure outfit with the fur that Merlin adored.  Ladylike but boyish.  Definitely charming.

They both stepped back away from Snow White -- Gwaine in an exaggeratedly flirtatious bow at Rapunzel (“my lady, you make a dashing Prince Charming”) -- and Rapunzel went forth, opening the glass case with the help of Grumpy and Doc on either side.

As they did so, however, there was a loud crack of what sounded like lightning striking the ground in the center of the bushes, and a sudden darkness engulfed Snow White’s encasement.

Grumpy, Doc and Rapunzel were sent stumbling backwards, and the other five dwarfs ran and hid behind the shrubberies, Bashful and Dopey stumbling over each other on the way out.  Gwaine and Merlin, however, stepped forward, Gwaine with his sword drawn, Merlin leaning on his walking stick.

Between the glass coffin and the group of them was an old woman all in black, her hood fallen off her head as Merlin stood in offense, hands outstretched in a threat of magic.  She looked younger, more dignified, but she was unmistakably the same hag from the night in Camelot and back in the pub.  It was in the wrinkles of her eyes and the kick up at the corner of her mouth.

“You think you can put your hands on my daughter?” she demanded, her words harsh as if it was difficult to even spit them out.  “You will stay back or I will kill you like I should have done.”

“You cursed your own daughter?” Merlin asked, his nose and lip curled inward with disgust.  He imagined his own mother, what might cause her to put her own son out.  He could come up with no answer; Hunith simply wouldn’t. “ _Why_?”

“Don’t you even speak to me!” the witch shouted, pushing her hands out in an attempt to hurl Merlin backward; his gut reaction was to block it with the walking stick, and that was apparently the right move to make.  It absorbed most of the impact and he only stumbled backwards, still dumbstruck.  “You _killed_ my husband.”  She pointed out to all of them as they stood around her.  “Now I’ll kill all of you!”

“No!” Rapunzel had apparently regained her composure from whatever was holding her back, whether it was shock or fear or enchantment.  She lunged at the witch with a fist held high, but the witch only pushed off easily with magic.  Gwaine hurried to help her up, meanwhile Grumpy, Doc and Happy were discussing over in between bushes. That meant they probably needed time.

“You cursed our king!” Merlin said, stepping forward with both hands clutched over the orb on his walking stick so as to seem non-threatening.  The witch looked to him down her nose, distrust apparent in her raised lip.  “Tell me why.”  Rapunzel and Gwaine both stepped forward as if to go after her, but Merlin put a hand out and they both stood down.  “I want to talk to her,” he told them, hoping a forthright attitude could keep her engaged. 

She surprised Merlin by relaxing her stance.  “I already told you, boy,” she said with a wicked grin.  “A woman paid me a hefty sum.”

“Who?”

“What does it matter?”

“Morgana...”  Gwaine said it quietly from beside Merlin.  He suspected Gwaine was right.

“What was in it for you?” Merlin asked, taking one more step forward.  “You don’t need gold.  How did she pay you?” 

The witch’s wicked grin thinned into a tight-lipped smirk.  She twirled her index finger in the air, and it would have seemed an idle mockery were it not for the fact that the very air around it was darkening and spinning with her till a thin black line twirled around it like a ribbon round a maypole. “What do you think?” she asked, the oldness in her voice making her sound sick while the sharpness in her eyes reminded Merlin not to be deceived by her appearance. 

She quickly brought her hand down and pointed her finger at Merlin, and the black ribbon shot out like a spider’s silk, wrapping tight and fast round his wrists and ankles.

Gwaine rushed toward him, shouted “Merlin!” but she did the same to him and he fell to the ground as his feet were stopped.  Rapunzel and the dwarves stood immobilized by something different altogether: None of them knew what to do.  Merlin tried to stay standing, to keep his hands on the walking stick, but the magical bonds were hurting his leg and if they bound any tighter, he would lose his balance completely.

“The prize was me?” It wasn’t really a question.  He wondered why, though: Was it for his magic?  No, Morgana didn’t know, couldn’t know... “What for?”

“I shan’t explain myself.”  The witch turned to Gwaine on the ground with his ass in the air, she gave an appraising smirk.  Behind all of them was Grumpy waving to Merlin.  While the witch was distracted, he pointed to his empty hand and mouthed something.  Merlin couldn’t make it out.  “Though it seems I got a good deal: a free, handsome man came out of the bargain.” 

“You’re _disgusting_ ,” Rapunzel spat.

Grumpy continued mouthing something Merlin still couldn’t read, though he motions were growing irritable and frantic, pointing to his empty hands with heated fervor.  _The staff._ It wasn’t a walking stick, it was a _staff._   Magic from this land.  If his magic was weakened by being here, maybe if he could channel it in, the staff could amplify it.  With his fingers still wrapped tightly round the orb, he whispered an incantation to make the ribbons lax, first round himself, then round Gwaine.  While he was doing this, however, he failed to realize that Rapunzel had been knocked back again, and the witch was threatening the dwarves, first of all Grumpy who had clearly been trying to bark _something_ at Merlin.

As her back was turned, he dropped the ribbons from his wrists and pointed the staff at the sky.  “Hey, _hag_ ,” he said, confidence swelling in his chest and voice.  Her head craned toward him and when she saw him freed, she pointed her own hand skybound.  “How do I break the curse?” he demanded, low and dark as the storm forming overhead.

“You’re just a servant!” she roared.  “There’s nothing you can do!”

“This is your last chance!” Merlin warned as the dark clouds began swirling round his staff like the silken magical ribbon had done round the witch’s finger.  She drew her raised hand downward palm-up as if she was trying to bring the sky down with her.  “Tell me how to break the curse!”

She laughed.  It was a derisive laugh, a jolt of an expression of sorts that lasted only a moment but reflected in every part of her.  Whenever an enemy was laughing, Merlin knew he was about to win: It meant they were either stalling, or overconfident.  Though the hag was unreadable, the outcome would be his either way, so when she answered finally, it wasn’t difficult to find the confidence he needed to make his next move.

“As if you don’t already know,” she said, her voice mocking and low.

With a flash of gold in his eyes, he drew the staff down hard and brought to the ground with it a bolt from the sky, striking her body much the same as he had done to Nimueh all those years ago.  Her body collapsed.

The air crackled around them a moment, Gwaine and Rapunzel watching from the ground while the seven dwarves took a step back. 

“I was just saying to _hit her with it_!” Grumpy shouted exasperated; the dwarves around him startled.  That wasn’t quite the master plan he had expected Grumpy and Doc to come up with....

Rapunzel pulled herself up, eyes now locked on the body in a heap on the floor.  “Snow... is gonna _kill_ you,” she said, though she showed no remorse in her own voice. 

She went on to explain to them that the hag had locked her in the tower and put Snow under the curse specifically to keep the two of them apart; she didn’t approve of their relationship.  She was the Queen, and Snow White’s mother. 

Rapunzel explained this while they arranged the hag’s body in a more dignified way.  The dwarves worked fast to make her a basic memorial from rocks and branches alongside Snow White so that when she woke, she wouldn’t be appalled.  Meanwhile, Gwaine took a new approach to comforting Merlin; there was an almost reverence in the way he clapped his back, but Merlin found he didn’t like it.  He wasn’t used to it, didn’t want it -- admiration was for people who made a difference, led a people into change, _saved_ someone.  All he had done was kill the only person who knew how to reverse the curse.

“She’ll be at least a little thankful,” Rapunzel conceded quietly to Merlin when he had pulled away a from the group to sulk by himself.  “She won’t show it though.  She was still her mother.”

“Do you think she’ll know what to do?” Merlin asked, scratching the back of his head in a sheepish attempt to keep his hands busy.

“Well, I’ve never heard of any other way to break--”  She stopped speaking when he raised his eyes to look into hers, and when she did, her demeanor shifted totally; at once, she went from standing with a hand on her hip and a light, comforting smile to standing upright, hands at her sides, with sullen eyes.  She may have had a brash voice, and she may have been able to dismiss Gwaine’s flirting with ease, but she definitely had a heart.  “Maybe, though.  I mean, I wasn’t raised by a witch, what do I know about magic...”

“Well, it can’t hurt to ask,” was Merlin’s conclusion, and he kept that in the back of his mind as everyone gathered round to witness the kiss.  With the glass case propped open, Merlin watched with a heavy weight about him making him rest with effort against the walking stick he found he had grown rather attached to.  He was a queen-slayer now, and it wasn’t a small weight to bear.  She had a daughter, though: Snow White.  The royal line was about to be saved.  Snow White could become Queen, with Rapunzel alongside her.  And who’s to say that couldn’t happen at Camelot?

The image of Merlin standing beside Arthur came to mind, their hands joint as they faced the crowds, both of them wearing crowns... If this realm could have two Queens, then surely Camelot could allow for two Kings.

A weighted breath fell through his nose and he watched as Rapunzel leaned in close, risen up on her toes so that she could reach Snow, touch her face, lean in and look at her for a moment -- she had the same look in her eyes Gwen had when she watched Arthur.  Merlin’s stomach twisted at the thought.  There had to be another way, and he was selfish for even having these thoughts.

Then he got to witness it: Rapunzel pressed her lips to Snow White’s, and there was a shift in the energy in the clearing.  It was hard to describe, but it took all of Merlin’s guilt and self-doubt and turned them over, made it simmer down while something else bubbled up.  Whatever it was that came out of him, it made his eyes sting and his lower lip tremble.  Gwaine gave him a pat on the back of his shoulder, but Merlin kept his eyes on the girls, a placid smile put upon for everyone but him.

It started with Snow White’s eyes first, fluttering open as if from a dream, and the reaction was almost instantaneous.  She sat up fast and grabbed the back of Rapunzel’s head, pulling her in for a more heated second kiss.

Merlin looked away then.

Whatever it was, that feeling it caused, made him heave a laugh and choke back a sob at the same time.  It couldn’t work with him and Arthur, it just couldn’t -- Arthur had been in love with Gwen for well over a decade, and one curse from a foreign witch wasn’t going to change that.  Merlin had given up that dream long ago.  He continued laughing, really honestly very happy for the girls, and Gwaine continued rubbing his back, his hand warm and comforting while Merlin tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.

When he came down off the emotional high from the broken curse, he realized that dwarves were crying, some of them, while others clapped and cheered as Rapunzel helped Snow White down from her encasement.

The gaggle of all of them went back to the dwarves’ home for the evening. 

 

 

It was a while before Merlin could get a word in with Snow White over all the excitement and congratulations. 

“My mother?” she asked, once Merlin explained the situation.  They walked alone together under the stars while Gwaine continued his relentless flirting with Rapunzel inside; she seemed to have warmed up to him and they picked up a sort of teasing back-and-forth.  “You mean the woman you killed?” 

It was hard to gauge the severity in her meaning; her expression read neutral, but often neutral was a determined resolve, and determined resolve often meant concealing bad thoughts.

“Yeah, I-”

“I can’t say I’ve forgiven her,” Snow White said with a sigh, slowing her pace so that Merlin, still walking with the stick, could keep even.  Merlin didn’t have to remind himself that Snow White would soon become queen -- she carried already a very stately air.  “I can’t say I forgive you.  But I understand your reasons.”  She punctuated her concession with a short sigh.

For what it was worth, Merlin was relieved to hear it.  “I’ve lost my father...” he offered quietly.  “And I almost watched my mother die, it would have been my fault.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.  But this isn’t what you wanted to talk about.  I apologize for what she may have put you through, but I’m certain you already know what I’m going to tell you.”

“No,” Merlin said, pushing his walking stick into the ground.  She gave pause to turn and face him.  “There has to be another way.”  Snow watched him expectantly, gestured for him to go on.  “There’s no way he would-” he paused; she said nothing “-there’s no way _I_ could-”

He cut himself off again.  His cheeks flushed now, the tips of his ears having long since turned red. 

“What I’m hearing from you, Merlin, is that you are willing to risk your life for him, to come all this way, to another world and face foreign magic, on the road for I don’t know _who_ knows how long -- but it isn’t for love that you do it?”

“He’s my friend,” Merlin said strongly.  “And I know he would do the same for me.”

Snow White gave a sideways smile and folded her hands over her stomach.  Something about her made Merlin feel defeated, sunken in -- tired.  _Exhausted._ “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh.

“I fear you’ve come to me for no reason.” A pain washed through Merlin, made his eyes burn.  “There’s nothing more I can tell you.  Now go home and kiss your sleeping beauty.”

 

*  *  *

 

Even with Gwaine, the trek home was lonely.  Gwaine’s usual cheer had sombered, and Merlin wasn’t much into instigating play.  His gut dragged too much for his heart to feel light, and the impending reality of what he was meant to face on his return made all the brightness of the world seem dark.

Snow White prepared some food for them to take on the journey, and Merlin, feeling much stronger come morning, wanted to leave the walking stick behind, but Doc insisted he keep it.  It made a nice gift, but Merlin didn’t know what he would do with it; a sorcerer with a staff wasn’t really very subtle.  Though Gwaine told him to keep it for what it was: A gift of gratitude.  No one would question it.

The dwarves led them back in through the caves, and Lady Marge saw them through the castle safely and gratefully with no mention of her deceased husband or Merlin’s falsified lordship.

When they got to the mermaids, it was the biggest relief they had experienced on the trip.  They were almost out of there.  Of course, they stopped to say hello to Marina.  Gwaine told her he was sure Rapunzel would be visiting soon enough, but that the three of them would have to go on without him in their lives.

Stepping back through the mirror was as easy and as difficult as coming through the other side -- all Merlin had to do was recite the incantation correctly.

They stayed the night at the inn over the tavern.  At just a day away from Camelot, Merlin’s anxiety grew.  He didn’t know how to face this, how to explain it to Gwen, or how to talk to Arthur if this did work.

They heard no news of Camelot.

When they got back to Camelot, the entrance was covered in briars.  Merlin used the staff to burn down what of them he could, while Gwaine cut the singed ones to the ground.  Together, they got through, only to find that everyone within the citadel walls had fallen asleep where they were.  It wasn’t something Merlin hadn’t seen before -- but that didn’t make the citadel any less helpless and haunted.  It was easy to imagine Morgana sweeping in and taking the place over at any minute.  They had to hurry.

Gwaine led Merlin through the castle much faster than Merlin’s nerves would have liked; his feet were getting cold, but it was beyond choice at this point.  Merlin had a duty.

When they reached Arthur’s chambers, Gwen was sleeping seated at the desk, her head on her upper arm with her hands splayed out.  “I can’t do it,” Merlin said, but Gwaine gave Merlin’s shoulder a firm squeeze and a nod.

“On the bright side,” he said, with a bit of his usual charming smirk, “if this works out, then Leon owes me quite a bit of gold.”

That actually did comfort Merlin -- not for the bets being placed on him, but for the joking.  And the encouragement.  Gwaine was on his side, he thought.  If all else failed, he knew there was someone who would stand beside him.

So he went over to Arthur, who looked exactly as he had the day Merlin left.  “He’s such a lazy prat,” Merlin muttered as he approached the bedside, sitting on the edge of it.  “I bet no one’s changed the bedding since we left.”

Gwaine let out a quiet chuckle, but said nothing.

A long, tired breath escaped Merlin.  “Just... just do it?” he asked, glancing back at Gwaine for encouragement.

“Do you mean to tell me you can call on the forces of nature to strike a woman dead, but you can’t give your king a kiss on the mouth?”  He gestured for Merlin to go on.  “Just do it, that’s the idea, yeah.”

“Right.”  Merlin gave a nod.  “Just do it.”  He licked his lips and looked back down to Arthur, bringing his focus into the room.  “If this works...”  He’d have to tell Arthur about his magic.  He’d have to tell Arthur about his feelings.  He’d have to tell Arthur _everything._ He’d be laid bare, and Arthur would surely have no choice but to send for the guards and have him thrown in the dungeons.  This was more than just treason.  “If this works, I’ll kill him myself.”

“You’re putting it off,” Gwaine said, as if Merlin didn’t already know.

“This could only cost me my head, is all,” Merlin shot back.  Gwaine grinned; Merlin let out a light laugh.  It was time to do it.

He leaned over the bed, put a hand on the pillow beside Arthur and looked down at him.  He could feel a prickle of something, a pull of magic urging him forward.  It became a loss of will, a momentary surrender to the strings of fate.  His stomach leapt and sank both at once before he even made contact, and the moment he did, everything went numb.  The energy changed, and a form of elation washed over him, making him bold enough to linger in the kiss, to feel what Arthur’s mouth felt like, to taste what it tasted like, and to find comfort in the same comfort Arthur has always offered him: The comfort of being home.

All at once, it left him.  He pulled back, looked down at Arthur with expectant waiting – _did it work?_ was hardly the first question to come to mind, because whether or not it did, his heart would ache.  Did Arthur know what happened?  Was Arthur angry?  Would Arthur be okay with it?  These were what he really needed the answers to.

His eyes flickered open, and he looked up at Merlin, confused and slightly irritated.  “What time is it, Merlin?” he asked, looking out the window.  “How could you let me sleep this late?”

He didn’t know.  Of course he didn’t know.  If he even felt the same, he was in just as much denial as Merlin had been.  “You have no idea,” he said, shaking his head with what was meant to be a laugh but came out as more of a sob.  “Get out of bed, you good-for-nothing excuse for a king, you’ve been sleeping for nearly a month,” he said, pushing himself off to get away from him.

“Arthur!” Gwen breathed from across the room.  She sat up slowly, pushed her hair flat, looked between the bed and Merlin and Gwaine.  She pushed herself up from the bed, but seemed split between wanting to rush to find out how the curse was broken, or to Arthur’s side.  She got a sense of it, though, when she realized Merlin wasn’t looking at either of them.  “True love’s kiss...?” she offered, midway between the desk, Arthur and Merlin.

“ _What_ is going on?” Arthur demanded to know as he sat up in the bed.  “I demand to know!  And why is Gwaine here?  No offense, Gwaine.”

“None taken, sire.”

When Merlin didn’t answer, Gwen drew a hand to her mouth.  “I think I...”

“The whole kingdom will be waking up now...” Gwaine said helpfully.  “Perhaps the lovely queen and I shall see to it that everything is alright.”  He slipped in to take the staff from Merlin, and with that, he escorted her from the room.

“ _Mer_ lin,” Arthur said as he threw his legs over the side of the bed.  “Are you going to explain this to me or not?”

“Well, sire, you were under a sleeping curse,” Merlin answered reasonably.  “Remember the spinning wheel?  Pricked your finger on it?”  Arthur gave Merlin a dumbfounded look as if to urge him to _go on or else I’ll make you_.  “You’ve been under a curse until just now.  In fact, it’s your fault Camelot was cursed, if you want to look at it that way.”

“I don’t want to look at it that way, Merlin.”  He walked over to the dressing partition; Merlin fell into his usual morning routine and fetched a pair of trousers for Arthur.  “So?  What happened?  Did the knights catch the sorcerer?”

“No,” said Merlin, rather liking the nonspecific answer. 

“What is this with Guinevere leaving the room?  If I’ve just woken up from a month-long curse -- Merlin, fetch a different tunic -- then why isn’t she relieved to see me?”

Merlin’s heart beat hard against his chest.  His body tensed -- shoulders raised, elbows in tight -- and he passed a fresh, red tunic over the partition.  “Because of how the curse was broken, sire,” he said with an attempt at ambiguity.

“And?” Arthur asked, coming out from the partition.  He looked to Merlin as if he were a child being coaxed out of a lie.  “The curse was broken, how...?” He gestured with his hands for Merlin to go on.

It was a struggle not to roll his eyes.  Merlin grabbed his bag and yanked out a leftover piece of food, then shoved it into Arthur’s hands.  “Eat your breakfast,” he said irritably.  “That’s the best you’re getting until the kitchens are back in business.”

“Merlin, what aren’t you telling me?” Arthur asked, taking the bread though he eyed it with distrust. 

“If you won’t eat it, I will.” Merlin reached out to snatch the bread back, but Arthur kept it away.  “Ungrateful, arrogant--”

“ _Mer_ lin!”

“The curse is broken by true love’s kiss,” Merlin snapped, his voice low and fast with irritation.  Just as he suspected, he felt angry and exposed.  “Gwen tried it before Gwaine and I left, it didn’t work.”  Arthur said nothing, did nothing.  Merlin shifted his weight.  “I’ve been agonizing over this for _three weeks_ , don’t give me that face, it’s not my fault.  If you would just- just stop being such an _idiot_ all the time, maybe I could help it.”

“ _True love’s kiss_?” he finally asked, indignant at the suggestion.  Merlin shrugged unhelpfully.  “What is this, Merlin, a _fairy tale_?”

Merlin laughed dryly and pointed at Arthur, mocking him.  “You are a clever one, sire.”

“Shut up, Merlin, and tell me the truth!” Arhur said with an indignant laugh, his hands rising incredulously. Merlin hated how stupidly adorable he looked when he couldn’t see the plain truth.

“The truth, sire?  I kissed you, _on the lips_ , and _you_ woke up.  That makes me your knight in shining armor, so I’d appreciate a little respect.”  It was meant to sound like a joke, but it didn’t.  He crossed his arms over his chest, pushed his toe in the ground, and wondered what Arthur was going to do.  Would he turn him away?  Mock him some more?  If Arthur woke up, then it meant he felt the same way about Merlin -- but what if Arthur didn’t realize his feelings, the way Merlin hadn’t known his own?  Rolling his eyes, he looked up to the ceiling and leaned all of his weight back against Arthur’s bedpost.  _Make it light, Merlin_ , he told himself.  _Make this okay.  Make him happy again_.  “You can start by polishing my helmet,” he said lamely.  “And scrubbing my boots.”

Arthur shook his head, took a seat.  A sigh escaped Merlin and he brought his eyes back down to watch his king, confused and probably disoriented from the long sleep.  “What about that time with Gwen?” he asked, holding his head in his hands.  Oh, right.  Merlin had forgotten all about that.  Arthur was under the lovespell, and Merlin had talked her into kissing him to break it.  His stomach began to twist with guilt.  “She kissed me in the tent, I was cursed then...”

Merlin shrugged and pushed off of Arthur’s bed post, setting to straightening the sheets and the comforter.  “Hearts can change...” he offered, unsure of himself.  Gaius had said something about ultimate destiny, was it?  And not petty desires…

“I’m _married_ , Merlin -- I have a _duty_ to my people.  I--”

“Don’t you think I know all this?”  Merlin sighed and slapped his hands down on the pillows as he fluffed them, his attention focused anywhere but on Arthur.  “I don’t care what happens, Arthur.  My goal was to protect you from the curse, and that’s what I did.”  Across the room, he heard Arthur getting up and moving but Merlin didn’t look back, didn’t watch for it.  “I’d be happy to go back to the day-to-day, frankly, even if it means your lazy ass is back to dirtying the floors, just don’t-”

“Merlin, don’t be stupid.”  Arthur was much closer than Merlin expected.  Very close, in fact.  Merlin glanced back over his shoulder and was forced to stand upright.  He could feel Arthur’s breath, hot and even, on the back of his neck and his knees began to shake.  He hated Arthur’s tendency to face things head-on.

“Can’t help it, I was born this way,” he said with a flashy grin, hoping to be able to close this discussion soon.  He was ready to collapse in his bed and forget all of this ever happened.  Stagnation would be good with him, so long as he still had Gaius and Arhur was still in one piece.

Unfortunately for Merlin, Arthur had a much harder time of keeping his mouth shut.  There was a moment between them just now, Merlin thought, with him standing still facing the bed and Arthur standing very close behind him, tunic lopsided and trousers unfastened.  “Oh for goodness sake, Arthur,” Merlin snapped, turning around to tuck Arthur’s shirt into his pants and lace up his waist.  He forced a toothy grin, let Arthur think he was being teased.  “You are easily the most pathetic king Camelot has ever known.”

But Arthur didn’t react to the teasing, Arthur reacted to the touched.  He reached between them and gabbed Merlin’s wrists to still them, and let a heavy breath out through his ever-so-slightly parted lips that Merlin definitely most certainly was not looking at.  Except that he was looking.  Staring even.  This was much harder, being aware of his own feelings, and it wasn’t fair that they were both forced into this sort of awkward pull that felt totally unnatural.  He could have gotten over it, gone on ignorant of potential, if that stupid curse hadn’t gone and confirmed Arthur’s own feelings without giving him the chance to do it himself.

“Merlin, tell me,” he said, his voice calm and gentle, the way it always was when Merlin was doing something brash or hiding something obvious.  Merlin openly rolled his eyes.  He pulled his wrists from Arthur’s hands and tried to push past him, but he grabbed Merlin’s biceps, held him still.  “So, it was sorcery then?  A trick, to fool us into being distracted, it’s not us-”

“No, Arthur,” Merlin dragged out, eyes and arms and heart exhausted.  “It’s not a trick.”  A small shrug, and he couldn’t look into his eyes.  “Now if you’ll excuse me-”

“So you’re telling me that _you_ believe we-” He was still holding Merlin’s arms, still standing close.  He let go when it seemed like he realized he couldn’t even say what he was asking.  “It’s ridiculous.”

“You’re absolutely right, sire,” Merlin breathed, succeeding this time in pushing past him.  “So just forget about it and get back to your people.  They’re going to need you.”  He grabbed an armful of dirty linens and snatched up Arthur’s nightclothes before moving for the door.

“Merlin, wait-” was the last of what Merlin heard before the door cut him off.  He dropped the dirty clothes in the corridor and hurried past the help and the lords and ladies slowly waking up so he could get to Gaius’s chambers.  He passed Gwen and Gwaine walking toward him, but he kept his head down and rushed past, unable to face either.

When he got there, Gaius was just tidying up a spill.  He looked up at Merlin and dropped the rag on the table and hurried on over to pull Merlin into a hug. Merlin let out the sob he’d been trying to swallow back for a while now and wrapped his arms tight around the older man whose patting and quiet reassurances were exactly what he needed.  Merlin didn’t explain what happened, of course Gaius already knew -- Merlin realized now he had known all along.  Even tried to warn him.

There was an impromptu celebration for the king’s return.  Merlin didn’t attend and no one came to fetch him.  In the morning, Gaius told him that Arthur had declared Gwaine the hero who defeated the sorceress who had Arthur ensorcelled.  There was no mention of the curse’s details.

At breakfast, Merlin didn’t go to Arthur’s chambers, but it still surprised him when there was a knock on the door -- Arthur’s knock, of course, no one else knocked with such obnoxious confidence.  He expected Arthur to avoid him, to try and keep the whole issue as far from his mind as possible.  But no, Arthur came bulling right on in without even waiting for the door to open. 

“Perfect!” he announced, as if they had gathered at the table to eat specifically to be his audience.  Merlin rolled his eyes.   _Of course my true love is an arrogant ass,_ he thought.  Without giving Arthur the dignity of his full attention, he continued sitting facing away from Arthur, slurping his broth.  Gaius gave his attention to Arthur however.  “I wanted to ask you both about the curse.”

Merlin was glad to be looking away then. “There’s nothing more to ask,” he said, and he half wished he was facing Arthur so that he could see him roll his eyes.  “Just go back to whatever it is you have to do.”

“No, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur said, leaning over to the table to put his hands flat on the end.  He looked between Merlin and Gaius.  “I want you both to look into it.  When Gwaine killed the witch, something must have changed.  Do you think you can do that, Gaius?”

Merlin looked over at Arthur and wondered what was going through his mind.

“Of course I can, sire,” Gaius said, agreeable and vague as usual. “I will come to you with any developments I may find.”  Arthur nodded at that, and his hair of course stayed perfect as it always did.  Merlin managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes, but that meant that Arthur caught him staring instead, which Merlin decided was much worse.

“Good.”  Arthur pushed himself up from the table and did look over just in time to catch him.

“But, sire-”

“Gaius.”  Merlin shook his head.  While Gaius did afford Merlin a sympathetic glance, he did give much other credence to Merlin’s plea to simply not address it.

“From what I understand, Merlin has told you the only cure I could find.”

“Well, find whatever the other was,” Arthur said, and that was that.  The rest of the conversation was small talk, a bit of Gaius checking up on Arthur to make sure he was still healthy -- which, of course he was, Arthur always managed to stay perfect -- and a lot Arthur and Merlin pretending not to notice each other the several times they made accidental eye contact.

It didn’t stay with both of them pretending not to notice each other for very long.  In fact, Arthur soon after became quite insistent on demanding an audience with Merlin.  The day after an impromptu celebration for the king, however, there was plenty to do around the castle, so every time Arthur saw Merlin on a flight of stairs or down a long corridor, coming up with an easy excuse for escape was fairly simple.

When Arthur caught him close to the fields, Merlin told him, “The linens are done soaking, sire.” When Arthur caught him carrying a basket of fruits, and Merlin said, “The knights need their lunches, sire.”  Then Arthur caught Merlin with his hands empty, resting with his arms folded over in a window.  “Ah, there it is,” Merlin told him, pointing to some obscure plant in the gardens.  “That’s what Gaius needs.  I have to go fetch it, sire.”

Merlin knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up all day.  The rest of the help only asked so much of the king’s manservant, and frankly, Merlin was only actually good at so much; there wasn’t much they were willing to give him.  Exasperated as Arthur was trying to get him, Merlin tried to persist.  More than once, though, did he accidentally run into Arthur -- and twice, he walked down where he was conversing with Gwen.  There was something about their conversation -- hushed, fast and sullen -- that turned Merlin’s stomach.  He was doing wrong, he knew it, just by being here now.  He was a threat to their marriage.

 _But things don’t need to change,_ he willed at them, whether or not that’s what he wanted.  _If they stay the same, I can keep protecting him._ Change wasn’t good, change meant a potential for bad.  The way things were now _worked,_ and that was the most important thing.  Arthur had to become the great king he was meant to be, and Merlin had to see him there.

 

 

Merlin was feeling guilty enough that when another servant came to fetch him (“the king wishes to see you”) Merlin didn’t even really try to come up with an excuse not to go.  He regretted it, however, fairly quickly.  He wasn’t brought to Arthur’s quarters, but instead to one of the rooms where he often held his advisory meetings.  Gwen was leaving when he arrived.

Sitting at the opposite end from the entrance, Arthur sat with his head bowed as he raked over a list that Merlin couldn’t see from his end of the table.  A knight Merlin didn’t know well stood at the door, and Arthur dismissed him.  Feeling oddly formal about the whole ordeal, Merlin folded his hands in front of him.  What was this to amount to?  Was it some kind of trial?  Inquisition?

“You called, sire?” he asked, almost worried enough about the whole setup to think that Arthur didn’t trust him.  He rocked up on his toes.  “Gaius has been looking and-”

“No, Merlin, it’s not quite about that...” Arthur said, waving his hand to gesture Merlin forward.  He came up close to the table as Arthur turned the parchment around and ran his finger down the column.  He explained, “I have here a list of girls who work in the citadel.”  He seemed weirdly uncomfortable about the statement, wouldn’t even look at Merlin or even up from the piece of paper.

Merlin nodded as he eyed the list and waited for further explanation, but Arthur seemed to think he could derive a meaning from what he had already.  “Do you need me to deliver them something?” he asked, lifting up the leaf to look it over; he recognized some of them. 

“No, no, Merlin.  Not quite.  Erm.”  He tapped his finger on the list, glanced up for a brief flicker of eye contact, then back down.  “How do I put this...”

This was strange.  The formality of the meeting, the list, Arthur’s reluctance to explain and his lack of questioning in regards to the curse, which they both knew was on his mind anyway.  A wave of irritation made him flex his hand at his left side while he set the list back down on the table, sliding it toward Arthur with just the balls of his fingers.  This was an attempt to get Merlin to find a young lady to see. “If you’re telling me what I think you’re telling me, sire, then I think you know where I’m going to tell you to put this list.”

“ _Mer_ lin, _please,_ ” Arthur said, straightening the list for Merlin’s view.  “If you just pause to consider-”

“No, Arthur-”

“It’s not like I’m saying-”

“ _No,_ Arthur.”  He took a step back.

“Why can you listen-”

“ _I said no._ ”

The room was quiet a moment while Arthur picked the list up to look over it himself.  He didn’t seem pleased with it, or even very much with himself; his lips were pursed in a thoughtful frown and he shook his head.  “No, I suppose I didn’t think so either...” he admitted before setting it back down.

Sighing, taking pity on the awkward king before him, Merlin offered him tiredly, “You don’t have to change anything.”  He gave a weak smile when Arthur looked up.  There was no sense in trying to make Arthur realize a sentiment some magic tried to make him feel.  The more time went on, the more Merlin really doubted it was right anyway.  Still, he felt exposed for his own feelings which, the more time went on, Merlin really knew were true.  “You’re such an idiot, _nothing is different now_ , so if you just let things be...”

Arthur looked up and watched Merlin with a strangely contemplative face.  Merlin rarely ever saw such seriousness on him.  It was a weird expression, tired, sad... maybe even lonely.  No, that was wrong.  Not lonely.  Though, Merlin wished he actually knew what Arthur was thinking, as if that was an answer he could possibly get.

Whatever the moment was in that look, it was lost on Merlin.  And, feeling less patient as his eyes roved back down on the list again, he pointed a finger at Arthur and narrowed his eyes. “You have no right to interfere with my love life,” he said, more angrily than he meant to, but as the words came out he realized how much he meant it.

“You don’t _have_ a love life, Merlin,” Arthur said, possibly in a tease, it didn’t matter.  Either way, it made Merlin laugh, a scoff that came out dry from the back of his throat.

“Don’t I?” he asked, and it was a fair question.  There had been people -- plenty of people! -- Arthur hadn’t known about.  And then just days passed, the thing with Gwaine and- and- “It’s none of your business, anyway!”

“It _is_ my business, Merlin, I can’t have you pining over me when I’m a married man!”

“Oh-ho, _there they are_ , sire, your arrogance and pigheadedness, rearing their ugly heads.”  Alright, maybe Merlin was overreacting, but he couldn’t back down -- not now that Arthur was showing how little regard he actually had for Merlin’s situation.  He was lain bare, and Arthur had a perfect defense: A kingship, a wife, a charming, handsome, stupid face that could charm anyone into forgetting anything about him.  Merlin wouldn’t forget, though, because Merlin wasn’t charmed by it, not in the same way everyone else was.

“ _And I don’t pine!_ ” he added, ready to turn out and leave if Arthur said even just one more thing.  He didn’t, but Merlin left anyway.  He was angry enough that he wanted to cry, but he kept doing what he needed to.

The next couple of days passed without much incident.  After the whole _list of girls,_ Merlin knew the conversations couldn’t get much worse.  With enough time, and a considerable amount of convincing from Gaius, he came to see that Arthur was trying to do right by himself, by Gwen, _and_ by Merlin -- which in turn was what he thought was right for the kingdom.  It was still a stupid idea, and Arthur was still an idiot for pursuing it, but he had warmed to the idea that it wasn’t a rejection, _per se,_ but an acknowledgment of options.

And, more yet, an acknowledgment of Merlin’s feelings.

“It was a kind gesture,” Gaius told him.  Merlin tried to keep that in mind.  He didn’t intend to apologize for his reaction, but he did stop avoiding Arthur.  Still, he kept his hands busy and tried to stay out of Arthur’s hair.

The mornings and the evenings when they were alone together in Arthur’s room were a bit tense.  Arthur would sit at his desk or pretend he was reading or sleeping while Merlin gathered his dishes and brought him food.  Their eyes met now and then, mostly when Merlin glanced up to check on Arthur, only to catch Arthur already looking at him.  Maybe he was being too prideful, but it did make Merlin a little bit happy.

It even gave the simple task of helping Arthur with his armor a bit of a thrill.  Arthur was stiff and uncomfortable, but he was _trying_ to be normal, which -- to Arthur’s credit -- was doing exactly what Merlin had asked of him.  They were quieter than usual, but that meant the silent communication had picked up.  It somehow came out to be that Arthur was obedient (perhaps because he was trying to keep conversation to a minimum?) while Merlin acted with confidence, feeling bigger than he had before.

He turned Arthur’s hand over in his and actually took the chance, selfish as it was, to run his fingertips along the base of his wrist to the tip of his middle finger.  Arthur didn’t pull away.  Neither did he even look away, really.  He held his gaze steady on their hands between them, even as Merlin continued on with the wrist brace and leather gloves as if the simple motion had been a usual part of the process.

Maybe he _was_ pining, he acknowledged as he watched Arthur and the other knights practice.  Maybe he had been pining for a long time.  Maybe it didn’t matter. 

Well, it definitely didn’t matter, because even if Arthur did return his feelings, Camelot was no land of fairytales and that meant there was no happily ever after for them.  But he was happy enough, and he had been happy enough before the quest.  He could continue to be happy enough for here on out.

It was hard not to be hopeful for some change, though.  Especially when Arthur had begun hovering over Merlin like a hawk encircling its prey.  Merlin had been polishing the armor in the armory for the better part of an hour, and he actually lost count of how many times Arthur walked by.

Leon noticed, too.  So did Percival and Gwaine.  “He’s like a puppy,” Gwaine had noted, gesturing to the door Arthur had left through.  “Trying to get his master to notice him.” 

“I can see it,” Percival agreed.  Leon nodded, grinning the same as the other two knights.

“Right,” Merlin snorted, eyes on the steel being buffed.  Arthur actually came back in, but Merlin didn’t see it.  “That makes me Arthur’s master, does it?  I’d love that, actually.  Order him around for a day or two.  See how he likes getting covered in horse dung.”

“ _Mer_ lin.”

Merlin looked up, and let out an exasperated sigh, throwing the brush at Gwaine for not telling him Arthur was there.  “Are you serious?” he asked him, but Gwaine just laughed.  He and Leon and Percival left the room, though Merlin suspected they lingered by the door to listen.

“Perhaps when you’re done with this _simple task that’s taken you all afternoon_ ,” he said, walking in with his hands on his hips, “you can clean the stables, that _apparently_ you don’t mind doing, and get back to my boots that need scrubbing and I don’t know if you know this but my room is a _mess._ ”  Merlin winced.  He had been avoiding that. _“_ You have one job, Merlin!”

“Yes, sire,” he said with a groan, getting up to grab the bristle brush, but was surprised when Arthur was already fetching it for him.  He tossed it at Merlin before walking out, and he didn’t happen to walk by again after that.

Relieved, Merlin thought, _things are back to normal._

Even if they weren’t, really, they were getting there.  Merlin was starting to feel like he could forget the whole thing.  He was starting to feel _happy_.  Or at the very least, the relief manifested in delight.  And he was delighted even as he grabbed a basket full of dirty linens from Arthur’s room, and even when Arthur entered, he gave him a pleasant smile in greeting.  Arthur did not return it.

In fact, Arthur seemed angry.  He closed the door behind him and stood in front of it, and Merlin stood with the basket in front of him waiting for the path to clear.

“If you’re in love with me, Merlin-”

“Oh, god.”

“No, hear me out-”

“No, Arthur!  I said, _let’s go back to normal_.  What part of that are you not understanding?”

Merlin dropped the basket and crossed his arms over his chest, watching Arthur with expectant irritation. 

“All I want to know is, if you’re in love with me then why don’t you do something about it?  It makes no sense!”  Arthur took a step away from the door and closer to Merlin.  “I talked to Gaius and he said there’s nothing else that he can find, but there has to be another explanation.  Don’t you think in all the years we’ve known each other it might’ve come up before?”

Merlin took a step back.  “Arthur, just stop.”  He reached for the basket again; now that the door was clear, he would use it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The only other explanation is that you’re a coward,” Arthur cut in with his jaw set, and oh how Merlin would have liked to hit it.  “If you have feelings for someone, you should make them known.”

“What, like you did with Gwen however long ago?”

“That was different-”

“How?”  Merlin threw his hands up in surrender.  “Alright, I admit it, I have some _stupid_ feelings feeling for you and that makes it hard sometimes, but you’re a king and I’m just- and not only that, but you’re a guy, Arthur.  I’m not an idiot, I know the difference -- and not _everyone_ can get what they want just because they’re a dumb, charming, athletic, good-looking _clotpole_.”  Arthur looked like he wanted to say something, but Merlin grabbed the basket this time when he reached down for it and bumped Arthur’s shoulder as he walked past.  “As long as I can stay by your side when you need me, that’s enough.  Now can we drop it?”

“I’m just saying, when you like someone, you should do something about it!” Arthur called out as Merlin hurried off.

 _Do something about it_ , Merlin thought irritably.  And what should he do?  Kiss Arthur again?  Because all of it was working out so well from the first time.  Why would Arthur even suggest it?  He thought back on Arthur letting him touch his hand, and he wanted to smash the basket against the wall he was so angry.

Arthur dropped it.  After another day or so there was no comment or unusual glance.  It seemed dedicatedly normal, which made everything feel... off.  _Do something about it._

There wasn’t anything he _could_ do. 

And anyway, there wasn’t anything he _wanted_ to do about it.  Other than, maybe, say... kiss him again.  Touch his palm again.  Help him with his armor, tuck his shirt in, straighten his jacket... Warm his bath.  Protect him.  Nothing needed to change, he didn’t _need_ to kiss him again, and the rest of it he already had. 

But Arthur told him, _you should do something about it._ Arthur _told_ him to do something about it.  He told _Merlin_ to do something about his _feelings_ which were _for Arthur._   It didn’t make sense.  True love or not, Arthur couldn’t possibly--

The kiss _had_ woken him, though, and Merlin found himself as hooked on that as he was being told to do something about it.  If Arthur had been in denial before, just the same as Merlin had done -- maybe this had convinced him.  Maybe?

What if he was coming around?

The next evening, Arthur cornered Merlin in his quarters again.  Merlin was clearing the dishes from the dinner table when he returned, closed the door behind him.  He was wearing his leather jacket -- which, even before Merlin had started ogling at Arthur he had always thought looked handsome on him -- and he stood in the very center of the room.

He pulled off his gloves slowly as if thinking, eyes set on Merlin’s. 

Before Merlin went for the door, he reminded himself of Arthur’s words: _Do something about it._   He set the dishes down and stood upright, backing up so his spine rested against the bedpost.  This felt remarkably similar to the day when Merlin had kissed him, only that Arthur’s mind was clear now and Merlin felt even more exposed.

“Merlin.”

He fidgeted, hands shoved into his pockets.

“What do _you_ think of the whole true love thing?”

Arthur didn’t move toward him, and Merlin felt small against the bed.  “In general, or...”

“Our- us.  The curse.”

Merlin shrugged.  “I couldn’t say, sire.”

“Say anyway.” 

He leaned back with his hips and palms on the post, his ankles crossed as he pushed his weight against the post. 

“I think it’s not fair.”  Merlin eyed him, watched him for reaction.  He got nothing and went on.  “People should be able to think they choose their own paths.  Knowing your destiny can make you feel... trapped.”

Arthur nodded at that.  They weren’t just talking about love.  He could handle this, a discussion in abstracts and vague ideas -- Arthur rarely followed, and when he did, it was only where Merlin led him.  He wasn’t ready for the question Arthur asked him next, though: “Do you feel trapped?”

He couldn’t help but nod.  This whole thing wasn’t fair, it forced him to dredge up what he would have loved to be ignorant of for the rest of his life.  But now that he was aware, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.  He was in love with Arthur, and he couldn’t get enough of their arguing and their teasing and the few times when they were open and honest with each other.  Like now.

“I do,” he answered.  “Don’t you?”  Arthur shook his head.  Didn’t answer though.  Merlin took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking away at anything in the room.  “Can I go now?”

“If you want to.”  Merlin didn’t move.  Arthur pushed off the desk and took a step toward Merlin, taking his jacket off as he moved, leaving him in just his red tunic.  “So, you really believe the kiss is what woke me?”

Merlin nodded, still not looking at him.  He took another step closer.  “I also really believe that you’re a prat and we should drop this.”

The king stopped moving forward.  He fell back on his heel, and Merlin was both disappointed and relieved.  But he didn’t drop it.  “What would happen if I kissed you again?  What would you do?  If you were me.”

Merlin rolled his eyes and leveled them with Arthur.  “You’re asking me if I would kiss myself, sire.”

Arthur half-chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, a little surprised at himself and at Merlin.  “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Let’s see.  If I were an arrogant king,” Merlin said, folding his hands behind him to rest them on the bedpost just under his back, “I would forget about my extraordinarily handsome and skilled servant, and I would just get on with my life.”

“The _skilled_ bit is a stretch, Merlin, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“So you agree that I’m handsome?”

“Well, you’ve got cute ears.”  The servant blushed and the king smirked.  “I’d give you that much.”  He stepped forward and reached out in one motion, his hand going for Merlin’s face.  Merlin turned his head away from the touch.  “And you’ve got cheekbones that could kill.” 

This is what flirting felt like, Merlin thought, his heart pounding as he felt suddenly both scared and excited at once.  He’d seen Arthur flirting with tons of girls, he knew what it looked like, but he never could have guessed the feeling.  He lifted his head again, held it even with Arthur’s.  “If I were you, I wouldn’t be able to resist me,” he said with an attempt at a smirk that made him look more like a grinning child.  “Don’t know how you haven’t ravished me already, frankly.”

 

****  


 

Arthur didn’t need much more of a push than that, apparently, because he brought his hand to Merlin’s face again (this time uncontested) and closed the space between them fast.  He pressed his lips to Merlin’s, and it wasn’t a particularly delicate kiss, nor stately nor kingly -- in fact, it was probably Merlin’s most awkward kiss yet, and Gwaine had kissed him in total darkness.  But it was endearing.  Merlin could feel Arthur’s breath leaving his nose hard in what could have been a grunt of effort, and Arthur’s hand slid behind Merlin’s head, holding him tight. Merlin was pretty sure he bit his lip somewhere in there because it hurt.  Behind him, his hands were crushed against the bedpost. 

He laughed into it and Arthur pulled away, his brows pushed together.  Merlin could feel his eyes moisten, and, ignoring it, he pulled his hands out from behind him to grab hold of either side of Arthur’s face and pull him into another kiss, just as hard and only minimally less awkward.  He began to cry into it, not a sob or a whimper, but a laugh -- and eruption of pleasure, of satisfaction, of an energy he never knew he could even feel.  It was relief.  It was excitement.  It was everything Merlin was afraid to think of it being, and now that he felt it, he couldn’t contain it.

Arthur stopped it though, he put his hands on Merlin’s shoulders, pushed him back against the post.  “You’re crying,” he said flatly, his voice of a mixture of concern and irritability.

Merlin nodded and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands and let out another laugh.  “Nothing gets by you,” he said, and Arthur smiled at him.

God, Merlin hated that smile.

He threw himself against Arthur, wrapped his arms around him, and buried his face in his king’s shoulder just a moment while the rush washed over him.  Eventually, he was able to stop laughing and crying at the same time.  Arthur was surprisingly patient but frustratingly quiet.  He rubbed Merlin’s back, but said nothing, made no comment, did not try to reassure Merlin.  For a second Merlin was scared he changed his mind. 

But then they both pulled back and Arthur took one look at Merlin before kissing him again.

This time it was gentle.  Merlin stood up straight with his back against the post.  Arthur pressed his lips to Merlin’s just enough to feel them, so that Merlin had to push against the post to put some strength to the kiss.  Arthur pressed him back against the post, kept it soft.  Was this... This was how Arthur courted women?  It crushed against his heart, made him want for more; this gentleness after needing Arthur for so long was pathetic, uncalled for.  He pushed up on his toes, kissed Arthur harder, urged himself against his chest and made his neediness known.

He didn’t want a gentle romance, he was past that.  He wanted _Arthur._   And it seemed like Arthur wanted him, too.

They kissed.

And the kiss lasted some time, going from frantic and needy to calm, collected, accepting.  They went between touching each other’s faces, necks, hair, to letting their hand slip down and while Merlin groped at Arthur’s strong back muscles with his arms under the leather jacket he still wore, his king’s broad palms roamed over shit along his chest and stomach and sides.

As perfect as all of it was, though, it didn’t feel fair.

“What about Gwen?” Merlin whispered against the kiss, their lips still touching.  “What’ll happen to her?”   Arthur didn’t freeze up or get irritated as Merlin expected; instead, he kissed Merlin again, chaste and sweet, and he smiled against Merlin’s mouth. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, and his confidence made Merlin weak.

“You’re such a prat,” Merlin said, wrapping his arms the rest of the way round Arthur’s back so he could pull him into a hug.  He rested his cheek against Arthur’s shoulder; Arthur’s cheek resting against the top of his head was warm and comforting.  “If I find out you- I don’t know- If you hurt-”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said again, more quietly but no less certain.  Merlin smiled.  There was still more in store for them, more than Arthur knew, but at least they had the potential to live happily ever after.


End file.
